News and Articles

Santa Cruz doesn’t need a concrete monstrosity

As Jean Brocklebank (May 12) and Curt Simmons (April 28) pointed out in separate Sentinel commentaries, city plans for a multipurpose garage /library/apartment structure is not looking inviting. Now Craig Wilson (May 30) has also stepped up. I applaud all three! I mostly frequent Live Oak library, but I go to Central branch almost always when I’m downtown. I’ve been hoping that the city council would recognize that the entire county is affected by the decisions they make on this. I asked Cynthia Mathews several years ago why she was adamant about the destruction of public open space being considered. She said, “We need more parking.” I drive downtown often and always find parking in short time. Public libraries, in my lifetime of use, are almost sacred places, restful oases of quiet, calm, limitless browsing, reading. The thought of a concrete monstrosity in the heart of our small urban center feels just wrong. — Susan I Stuart, Santa Cruz

Voters will continue to pay in parking garage

The people debating the downtown parking garage don’t understand the drill that is playing itself out: The parking garage is a long done deal behind the scenes and you, the public, will pay for it.

The favoured developer will build unsightly (some say blight) stack-and-packs downtown with few or no parking spots with affordable housing exemptions and other concessions from the City -- you pay again.

The City will then rent the parking in the garage to the residents of these stack-and-packs and ratchet the prices up every year. You pay again.

If you’ve been watching Santa Cruz politics at all the last couple decades you should already know all this.

City should heed columnist’s words

Stephen Kessler always makes sense, and expresses his thoughts much more elegantly than one expects to find in a local paper: so I respect and applaud the Sentinel for publishing him frequently.

I don’t agree with him about everything, but his stand on the mega-concrete-parking-library colossus is absolutely sound. I pray that our lovely little city will quit pushing the goofy plans they’ve been promoting, and keep the library and the joyous, magnolia-shaded farmers market right where they are.

Downtown library options becoming clearer

This is a good problem to have — $27 million dollars specifically dedicated to complete a major public infrastructure project — the downtown branch library.

In 2016 about 70% of county voters approved a $67 million dollar bond, Measure S, for “…critical repairs and upgrades to support a steady increase in library usage and bring all ten branches up to 21st century standards.” No argument against the property tax was filed, underlining the depth of local support for libraries.And progress is being made! The Felton branch opened in February, work is underway at the Capitola branch, and improvements were made or are planned at others.

But plans on how to proceed at the downtown library has not yet resulted in a clear path forward. Studies completed by consultants point to four options: 1) build a new library; 2) renovate the existing library; 3) build a mixed use structure with housing and a public parking garage; 4) build a mixed-use structure with housing and possibly commercial space. Each of the options offer advantages and disadvantages. The mixed-use proposals seek to leverage other public monies and/or raise additional funds to increase the square footage and obtain better features, furnishings and treatments. But more than one citizen group opposes a mixed-use structure because it sites the library under a garage or housing complex, reduces community space and displaces the Farmers Market, creates waste by demolishing a cherished and serviceable facility. Housing and public parking are important issues, but Measure S supporters voted to pay taxes for libraries, not other public initiatives.

A new stand-alone downtown library may be ideal, but it appears all but impossible without a significant infusion of cash as existing funds are millions short to build a new library of adequate size. Unless philanthropists step forward with hefty donations or other funding is identified, the choices appear to be limited to renovation or mixed-use.

The library is an important civic institution and retaining it as a stand-alone building, a destination, emphasizes its place in our community. Many people, particularly parents, have expressed safety concerns at the downtown library based on the unruly or unpredictable behavior of some users. The library, open to all, uses zoning to address those concerns, separating children and adults. All of the options accomplish this, but the existing library, unlike the mixed-use options, offers the greatest practical separation because the children’s section is located on its own floor and there is staff presence. Closing the library during construction would be inconvenient, but other branches would be open to serve user needs.

The financial fallout of the pandemic may prove to be a decisive factor. The city and county are likely to grapple with smaller budgets for at least the next couple of years. We need to be mindful of living within our means.To stay on schedule, the downtown library committee must make a recommendation later this year on how to move forward. The good news is that there is enough money now to do something very good for the library – a significant and meaningful renovation at the existing location. It may be smaller than hoped for, but a newly renovated library will be widely used and greatly appreciated.

Craig Wilson is a Soquel resident.

A letter to parking garage advocates

To Santa Cruz City Councilwoman Cynthia Mathews, City Manager Martín Bernal, Development Director Bonnie Lipscomb and anyone else who still believes that a block-long six-story building with a five-story parking garage on top and a library on the bottom is a better use of the Lot 4 site on Cedar Street between Lincoln and Cathcart than an open plaza:

I wonder whether the coronavirus pandemic and its economic repercussions have changed your thinking about the need for another 300 parking spaces in the middle of downtown. It will likely be many years, if ever, before Santa Cruz recovers from the devastating impact the virus has had on local business, especially the restaurants, bars and live entertainment venues, which on weekend evenings used to draw the big crowds.

Even pre-COVID, available parking downtown exceeded existing demand. There may not have been a metered spot in front of the shop you were going to, but within a block or two you could find a space on the street or in a city lot or garage, and you could walk. So in light of what is likely to be a reduced demand for parking, how do you explain the alleged need for hundreds more parking spaces? What is it about a multistory garage that you find so irresistible—architecturally, environmentally, socially, esthetically and economically? Why would you wish to leave as your legacy such abominable evidence of your years in power?

A public plaza, an open social and cultural space in a sunny south-facing location whose most beautiful and appealing feature is those big magnolias with their generous green planet-cooling shade, with dedicated space for the farmers market and Antique Faire—essentially what we have now but much improved by new landscape design and much, much cheaper to build than an ugly and instantly obsolete garage—seems such an obviously superior idea in every way that I’m baffled by your persistence in promoting your garage-library. And if you tell me that now “affordable housing” is the major component, then what was so urgent about building more parking?

Ah yes, the library, which you want to incorporate into your garage with “affordable housing” as window-dressing to sweeten the poison of your proposal. I understand your fiscal instinct to squeeze as much juice as possible out of available resources, but some ideas (as I’ve argued before) are just bad to begin with and never should have made it out of whatever committee conceived them.

The library belongs where it is, grouped with City Hall and the Civic Auditorium, as a Civic Center complex which, when Center and Church Streets are closed for events, is also a pop-up plaza. With the imminent development of more multistory housing and commercial mixed-use buildings, downtown is going to need more open spaces, not fewer. To renovate the library where it is—a far more environmentally and fiscally sound option than constructing a giant garage, with or without a library—maintains the integrity of our Civic Center and will help to advance the proposed renovation of the Civic Auditorium.

If and when tourism and dining and entertainment and retail return to our downtown in whatever new forms they take, a plaza or commons where people can congregate for social interaction will be a far greater attraction for visitors (both local and out-of-town) than a monstrous block of concrete, no matter how nice a library is under it.

Soon the city council library subcommittee will submit its report to the council, presumably with recommendations. I hope they will see the “health in all policies” common sense of abandoning the ill-conceived garage and deciding to renovate our main library, even if it means raising additional money—perhaps from funds saved by scrapping the garage. Nobody knows what the future holds, but it’s a good bet that attractive open space will prove a far more practical investment than a concrete megalith meant to accommodate cars that are unlikely to materialize.

Build Trust, Not a Garage

Is the City of Santa Cruz staff proposal for a 400 space parking garage warranted?

In order to answer this question, the City Council should hear from the consultant that the City paid $100,000 to conduct a study of parking downtown. According to the contract with the consultant, Nelson Nygaard should present their findings to the City Council. That has never happened. Nor has the council been notified of the publication of Nelson Nygaard’s report which I have posted online at GarageAlternatives.org. The report concludes, “The most fiscally prudent approach to accommodating additional demand: Modernize parking management and better align parking prices to the cost of building and maintaining the system.”

This conclusion aligns with the consensus of parking experts from three agencies who presented to the Planning Commission on Oct. 15, 2015. City staff have argued that Santa Cruz is exempt from this consensus. They have presented no evidence to support the claim of Santa Cruz exceptionalism. An online interview with parking researcher and UCSC Professor Adam Millard-Ball addresses the claim of exceptionalism.

In this era of economic uncertainty, will the City be able to finance a new parking garage from parking revenues? In September 2018, the City Council approved a doubling of parking fees downtown that City staff claimed would cover the $2.9 million annual debt service on the garage portion of the proposed project. Part of the staff presentation was a report from a consultant, Economic and Planning Systems (EPS), that reviewed the City staff calculation of the garage financing model. EPS found that “The model does not evaluate a worst-case scenario (for parking revenues) where a major recession occurs or a technological change (and pricing) substantially reduces parking demand.”

Even in the unlikely event that no economic recessions or technological changes were to take place during the 30 year debt on the garage, projected parking revenues are unrealistically optimistic.

The projections are based on the notion that the increased parking prices would have minimal effect on reducing demand. EPS states, “The [City’s] financial model uses, in most cases, a demand elasticity at the low end of the range (0.1).” Choosing the low end of the range is not a safe assumption, according to parking consultants. No successful business would make an investment based on this kind of wishful assumption.

When the Downtown Parking District can’t pay its debt, what happens? The City may look to raise parking fees— setting off a further round of declining demand. Or the City could re-institute the deficiency fee paid by businesses downtown that is now being phased out by 2024.

Neither scenario is favorable to businesses. Ultimately the City’s general fund is liable for the debt.

The consensus of three agencies and an academic parking researcher that there are more fiscally and environmentally sound ways to satisfy parking demand should be enough to persuade the council that no more funds should be spent on planning a new garage for downtown.

The unrealistic plan to finance an unnecessary garage undermines the credibility of the City at a time when we need to rebuild trust in local government.

Rick Longinotti is co-chair of the Campaign for Sustainable Transportation.

Progressives are devoted to what’s best for city

Stephen Kessler is hard to take on any given week but he outdoes himself this week trying to fit a round peg in a square hole, making the argument that progressives are actually conservatives. Kessler sees our city as an opportunity for unchecked development of fancy hotels, high rent buildings, new libraries built out of concrete that nobody needs or wants. Mr Kessler, that is the very definition of conservatism. Progressives, also referred to as liberals, spend a lot of time and energy devoted to ensuring that everything we do in Santa Cruz is for the good of the community.— Erica Aitken, Santa Cruz

Large library downtown feels wrong

As both Jean Brocklebank (5/12) and Curt Simmons (7/14/19 & 4/28) point out in separate guest commentaries, the city’s plans for a multipurpose garage/ library/apartment building is not looking inviting. I mostly frequent the Live Oak library, but I do go to the Central branch almost always when I am downtown. I’ve been hoping that the city council would recognize that the entire county is affected by the decisions they make on this issue. I asked Cynthia Mathews a few years ago why she was so adamant about the destruction of public open space being considered. She said, “We need more parking.” I drive downtown often and always find parking in short time. Public libraries, in my lifetime of use, are almost sacred places, restful oases of quiet, calm, limitless browsing, reading. A towering concrete monstrosity in the heart of our small urban center feels just plain wrong.— Susan Stuart, Santa Cruz

Library study not really apples to apples

While I appreciate their efforts, Group 4’s draft proposal to build a library on the ground floor of a 5 – 6 story building, under housing and 400 plus parking spaces failed to meet the apples to apples test. Unlike the free-standing 2-story Jayson Architecture rebuild of our existing library, there were no visuals of the sheer mass of Group 4’s proposal, which would fill an entire city block. All exterior visuals were street level, one looking north to blue shy, puffy clouds and birds on the wing.Group 4 said it was presenting a bare bones library, but the visuals had carpeting, acoustic ceiling tiles, and wood panelling. Jayson’s bare bones alternate truthfully omitted those enhancements. It now seems likely there will be no hoped for wow factor library, since lowered construction costs due to the new recession are being slowly eroded by COVID-19 safety regulations for construction crews.— Jean Brocklebank, Santa Cruz

Draft cost study compares downtown Santa Cruz library options

SANTA CRUZ — A city-hired design consultant team unveiled an early look at a proposed downtown library construction project, comparing “apples to apples” costs for two different locations.

“One of the key questions and the basic question was cost assessment because we know what the budget is $27 million and change – $17,000. How big a library can you get for that,” said Group 4’s David Schnee during Thursday’s live-broadcast remote meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council downtown library subcommittee. “To get that, we’re going to keep things even, apples to apples, the base-level quality and features.”

Group 4 offered a preliminary update to the public on its work specifically to assess the potential cost of building a new mixed-use library project on what is now a large city parking lot at Cedar, Cathcart and Lincoln streets. It was unclear how many attendees signed on for the “virtual” meeting on a topic that has been a hot-button issue politically for Santa Cruz in the last several years, but officials fielded more than a dozen questions from the public. The council subcommittee may make a formal recommendation on a new downtown library to the full City Council as early as June.

Leading up to the meeting, Jayson Architecture presented a cost assessment to the subcommittee in December for a version of the project that would remodel the library at its existing 224 Church St. site. To stay close to the library project’s budget, the on-site Church Street remodel calls for a reduction from the library’s existing 42,000-square-foot space to a two-story, 32,000-square-foot facility by demolishing one-story sections around the building’s perimeter. The firm also offered more than a dozen additional add-on features, about $5 million extra that would still improve the building “to a low-medium quality facility and will lack many of the amenities the public has come to expect in a modern library,” according to Jayson Architecture principal Abraham Jayson’s executive report summary.

Group 4’s mixed-use project assessment, when completed, similarly will include a list of “opportunities to enhance” the alternative Cedar Street project, Schnee said. Though the firm showed several concept drawings of how the new library project could look, Schnee stressed that those renderings were “very very very preliminary.”

“It’s done just to make sure we can get basic functionality to work, it’s something that we can have our cost estimators estimate and this is all just a placeholder,” Schnee said. “If any of these projects, renovation or any of these new ones were to go ahead, we would start with pretty much a blank canvas and we can get tons of broader community input.”

All versions of the library project will rely on some $27 million in funds from 2016’s library facility bond Measure S as a primary financial cornerstone. The Church Street renovation project contemplated a two-story standalone building, while the latest mixed-use library project assessment includes housing units and a multi-story 400-space parking garage, meaning some of the library’s structural costs would be offset by the city, however.

Thursday’s presentation contained descriptions of two possible mixed-use buildings, one in which the parking garage and housing are above the library, and a second version in which the housing is above and parking is adjacent to the library. In a cost-per-square-footage comparison, the renovation project compares similarly with the mixed-use library including parking above. The renovation project estimate is $576.97 per square foot, and the mixed-use proposal is $577.08, the consultants said. The project with parking to the side, due to its greater amount of windows along a longer street frontage, works out to about $589.82, they said.

“Well, why aren’t these even higher costs from the renovation? Well, we don’t have the elevators, we don’t have stairs — those are big savings,” Schnee said. “We don’t have any demolition costs. So, it is one of the reasons mixed-use projects happen, is because each of the different partners in a logical mixed-use can have some cost efficiencies.”

Killing garage plan will save city money

In the very near future, the main concern of the Santa Cruz city council will be how to cut the budgets of upcoming years, and avoid bankruptcy.

The financial losses from the COVID-19 shutdown and the legacy of pension and healthcare commitments will burden the city for years to come.

Curt Simmons (Sentinel April 28) has laid out a pretty painless step for saving $87 million: kill the parking garage/ library plan. Moves like this might keep more cops on the beat, more teachers in the classroom, more firefighters on the job. What’s wrong with that?

— Mark Chetkovich, Santa Cruz

Parking structure would be a loss for downtown

On March 16, like nearly every other small business owner in downtown Santa Cruz, I closed my office doors. Twelve employees plus my business partner and I now sit at home wondering when it might be safe to invite our family of patients back for their vision care. At some point I hope to continue what I have been doing in Santa Cruz for the last 30 plus years, however I also have concerns about our economic outlook.

Patience, planning and significant belt tightening will be imperative as we begin to open our businesses.

These imperatives bring me to a subject that I wrote about in this newspaper on July 14, 2019 in a letter signed by a dozen other downtown business owners. The City is proposing a massive new parking structure that would occupy the site of the current weekly Downtown Farmers Market. The Downtown Library would be a first-floor tenant in this structure. The City estimated the cost to the Downtown Parking District to be $37 million. Borrowing the funds would require debt payments of $2.9 million per year over the next 30 years – a total amount of $87 million. Financing would depend on revenue from parking district fees, a City staff model that predicts an increase in parking demand over the coming years.

This model ignores expert studies that indicate we already have ample parking spaces downtown and that future parking demand will remain flat. It ignores the downward trend in parked vehicles downtown since the peak in 2008. It ignores the possibility of future economic downturns, such as the one we are currently experiencing. It ignores the City’s Climate Action Plan that calls for reduced vehicle trips.

If and when the Downtown Parking District can’t pay its debt, what happens? The City could raise parking fees again. Or the City could re-institute the deficiency fee paid by businesses downtown that is now being phased out by 2024. Neither scenario is favorable to businesses. If the City wants to support small businesses downtown at this time of crisis it should:

Terminate the deficiency fee now instead of phasing it out over the next four years.

In order to win support for its concept of a library/garage, the City proposed adding affordable housing to the project. We still do not know how many units this would provide, what the costs would be, and how they would be funded. If affordable housing is a desired outcome, the City has other parking lots that can be converted to affordable housing, in some cases with preserving parking on the ground level.

This proposed parking structure would end any possibility of a lovely Downtown Commons and permanent home to the Farmers Market at its current location. While virtually every European, Central American or South American city or town of any size has a central public park, most of our modern US cities have neglected to include one in the planning process. Priority is given over to the auto. Downtown parks are a haven for residents, workers and tourists alike. People visit cities for what they offer; cultural, educational, artistic, entertainment and economic opportunities, not their parking structures. If we lose this space, we will likely never have another opportunity to create such a valuable community asset.

What good is a library?

"Building a new library on a new site will generate the additional expense of throwing away the old library. We create waste when we discard otherwise sound buildings; planned obsolescence is never sustainable."

There’s been a lot of talk recently about the future role of public institutions in an age of technological and generational flux. Our art and history museum, for instance, has morphed into an up-scale community center, a counterpoint to the proletariat Louden Nelson. And now our library is being re-invented, relocated, rebuilt or gentrified, depending on who you talk to.

But it goes deeper. Like the innate value of art and literature, civility itself is on shaky ground. Politicized and commodified, its value is being questioned. It’s easier now to attend to civic affairs on our own screens and in our own homes, and so public service itself has become estranged from the public. Sequestered, defensive and nearly invisible, it speaks to the community through media consultants who only offer us more reason to rue downtown and wax global in private.

So here we stand, with a tired downtown library across from an under-appreciated City Hall plaza and kitty-corner to an under-used Civic Auditorium. It sits at one end of a city block owned mostly by the City. Prime real estate. As civil service, civic engagement and social civility retreat from the commons, it was decided that removing the library—dispersing our civic core–would somehow strengthen its brand. But cities and libraries are not convenience stores.

Public development schemes like the proposed garage/library are always and only driven by money. When we entrust urban planning to public works departments, city managers and zoning administrators, fickle and fleeting public funding will be the tail that dutifully wags the dogs of change. Originally, they tried cloning a revenue-generating parking structure to a bus station, while splicing in the Pavlovian bone of affordable housing. When that inter-agency house of cards failed to stand up, the newly cash-rich library was recruited to stand in for the Transit District. Flowery rationalizations followed–as did our besieged business community–in this latest re-run of administrators and politicians dialing for dollars.

To sell their library-accessorized garage, the City spared no expense in comparing apples to oranges. They pit their mixed-use project, which spread soft and hard costs among several users, against a diminished, single-use library remodel, with its high front-end, unshared costs. There’s nothing to compare here, but there are some things we need to consider as we move forward.

We live in a world of diminishing resources. Building a new library on a new site will generate the additional expense of throwing away the old library. We create waste when we discard otherwise sound buildings; planned obsolescence is never sustainable. Perhaps one of our green building experts could calculate the landfill equivalent–in discarded paper cups–of abandoning one library for another. Then perhaps we’ll understand how dear the price of such indulgence; that environmental deficit can’t be buried under future bonds or taxes, or green-washed with solar panels.

The alternate scheme, of retrofitting the library within its current footprint, was designed to make the garage/library look good. The footprint of the original building will be reduced by 25% and, guess what? It’s now too small. But, most importantly, it stands alone and is not part of a larger, mixed-use project. Why not? Good question. That city-owned block could accommodate a symbiotic blend of public, retail, office and housing uses fronting four downtown streets and linking our civic and retail centers, while sharing Cedar Street parking. It could include a bigger library facing an enlivened civic plaza, a library supported financially by the adjacent commercial uses, just like our museum. And it can challenge local government to remain public, to re-engage with an involved, enthusiastic citizenry. I don’t see a downside to that.

The powers that be at City Hall say they have no plans for that city block once the library has been ushered away. How dare they make such decisions without even a plan? Will they trade our civic center for larger, locked-down administrative bunkers? Or will they capitalize that “surplus” real estate into gold-plated housing, yet again? Either way, we risk the vital, intangible loss of our commons.

Add ‘create civic core’ to rally cries

“Save Our Farmers Market,” “Save Our Heritage Magnolia Trees,” “Save Open Space on Lot 4.” These rallying cries will inspire Santa Cruz residents this pivotal political season. Faced with the well-funded, slick PR machine, Downtown Forward, which ignores the construction of an unnecessary 600-car parking garage every parking expert has advised against building and whose developer-friendly underwriters conflate housing and “shrinking” our library, we need to stand together and be clear — create a “Civic Core” instead, a people’s plaza, anchored by the renovated library, its sunny west entrance opening to City Hall and the soon-to-be renovated Civic Auditorium.

Residents won’t assume a $3 million garage debt each year for 30 years, we won’t acquiesce to environmental degradation with more congestion and auto-emissions Downtown, we won’t be fooled by a ruse obfuscating a 75 foot tall concrete garage smothering Lot 4. “Save the Farmers Market,” “Create a Civic Core!”— R. Morgan, Santa Cruz

Does the library benefit from other projects?

Santa Cruz Sentinel | As You See ItJanuary 8, 2020https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2020/01/08/letter-does-the-library-benefit-from-other-projects/ The conversation regarding the downtown library continues, and I have a question. Several years ago, the Metro proposed joining with the library to build a combined metro center/downtown library. It seemed an odd idea and it died a quiet death. Now the city is proposing a joint parking structure/downtown library. So I ask: Why is the library such an attractive partner for these other government projects? Does the library benefit at all or is it simply helping finance another agency’s building? There have been many claims to transparency on this project, but I am not convinced we have received it.— Deborah Taylor, Santa Cruz

Preservation of library building is best

Steven Kessler’s review of Jayson Architecture’s analysis of the existing Library was spot on. Preservation of this building is the best solution. The thought of a completely new building is enticing; however, a completely remodeled library will be fine, and for a lot less money. Jayson’s concept design is sound, and we especially like the indoor-outdoor spaces.— William Fisher, Santa Cruz

Preserving library is in alignment with core values

Thank you Stephen Kessler for your great column in support of renovating the downtown library at its current location. Preserving the library’s inclusion in Santa Cruz’s civic center, saving beautiful heritage magnolia trees, and revitalizing a structurally sound building feels in alignment with the core values of our community.A huge concrete parking structure, mixed use or not, feels exactly the opposite. It’s hard for me to imagine why we are even considering this. Jayson Architecture has presented plans for a lovely library, at its current location, that will meet all of our needs. So far we have not seen any actual plans, drawings or costs for the proposed parking garage/library.Let’s all be fans for conservation and renovation, for saving trees, for fewer cars, and for a lovely civic center with a beautiful revitalized library.— Satya Orion, Felton

Be green now. Save Lot 4. Rebuild the library.

Last month I attended the Santa Cruz Downtown Library Renovation Cost Assessment Community Meeting, an opportunity for Abe Jayson and Katie Stuart of Jayson Architects to introduce the public to their ideas for redesigning and rebuilding the Church Street library on its current site within the budgetary constraints ($27 million) given to them by the city. Jayson was not advocating for this option but presenting a picture of what is possible and evaluating its feasibility. Their presentation was the first specific example we’ve been given—unlike the purely conceptual and imaginary notion of a mixed-use parking-library-housing (-office-retail?) thing—of what a reconceived library might look like, and what it would cost at current rates (expected to escalate 8 to 10 percent per year).

The city’s premature attempt to impose on Santa Cruz their ill-conceived garage-library elicited a backlash in the community that has moved the City Council to appoint a subcommittee (Justin Cummings, Sandy Brown and Donna Meyers) to evaluate possible options. Jayson’s objective take on renovation was a reality check for partisans of all persuasions. By reducing the footprint of the existing building to its seismically sound core 30,000 square feet with a higher proportion of publicly accessible space, replacing the one-story outer sections with landscaping and usable outdoor patios, and turning the entrance toward Center Street facing City Hall, the newly redesigned and reconstructed library would remain, appropriately, an integral part of Civic Center. When the Civic Auditorium is renovated, as planned, the combination will revitalize the civic (as distinct from commercial) heart of Santa Cruz.

Rebuilding the library where it stands would also spare the magnolia trees and open space of Lot 4, targeted as the site for the garage-based project a few blocks away. The reduced square footage would make for a less-expansive space than some would like to see, but no one has shown us how the mixed-use model would produce a better library. And while some of the adult book collection would have to be distributed among the branch libraries to make more room for children’s books, the system would continue to function as it does now, with books freely circulated from one branch to another. Renovation of the two-story core of the library would also be a far “greener” use of the existing building than tearing it down or constructing a concrete behemoth on Cedar Street. And it costs less to heat and cool and maintain a smaller building.

The rub is that in order to do more than a bare-bones renovation for $27 million it will cost an additional $7 million (at current rates) to add the esthetic touches and handsome landscaping that would make it a stunning architectural attraction. Additional funds would likewise be needed to build the library-garage, and nobody knows or is willing to guess how many more millions of over-the-top dollars that would require. Ace fundraiser Vivian Rogers of Friends of the Library claims that it’s easier to raise money for a new and bigger project than for the scaled-down remodel of the old library—but that is a self-defeating prophecy reflecting her own institutional preference for the mixed-use megalith. Someone who believes in the value of conservation and renovation, a well-informed, articulate enthusiast, could surely convince prospective donors of both bang-for-the-buck and environmental benefits of leaving the library in Civic Center, where it belongs.

The next stage of this saga is a call for proposals, with specific designs rather than vague ideas, of what the mixed-use block-long five-story structure would actually look like, and what it would cost. Then the City Council and the community can compare the choices and people can decide for themselves what is most healthy for downtown, long term.

If I had $7 million to spare, I would rather invest it in an environmentally sensitive, appropriately scaled and located rebirth of a building whose bones are good than in a space-consuming, auto-centric Taj Garage that would obliterate one of downtown’s most attractive open spaces.

Renovated library would help with civic core

Santa Cruz Sentinel | As You See ItDecember 22, 2019

A letter writer recently cited, “bizarre assertions” from critics speaking out against a 600 car parking garage enveloping a library. Indeed, it’s bizarre for residents to incur a debt of $87 million over 30 years to construct a garage for which the just released Nelson/Nygaard Parking Study for Downtown states, “Implementation may detract from downtown objectives/ goals.” Surely, they’re referring to its six-story mass, spanning the length and breadth of the surface lot serving the Farmers Market, not only displacing our beloved market, but unnecessarily adding parking inventory, at enormous expense, that belies future parking trends — both millennials and baby boomers will not share our current driving habits, they write. Much better, as Jayson Architects’ have stated, to create a civic core, bounded by the renovated library, Civic Center and City Hall, a space inviting community activities, talking and mingling. Now, that’s a goal we can all get behind.

— Valerie Girsh, Santa Cruz

Opportunity to get better picture of renovated library

Santa Cruz Sentinel | As You See ItDecember 11, 2019https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2019/12/12/letter-opportunity-to-get-better-picture-of-renovated-library/

One writer’s suggestion that a bigger library is a better library, runs counter to current thinking that efficiency and less resource intensive building projects, especially one constructed under five stories of a concrete parking garage, beckon the future. Bigger mental landscapes, enhanced by our digital revolution, not bigger concrete edifices, will empower our children. A bigger debt burden, bigger by $60 million, funding a parking garage every parking expert who has presented to the city recommends against, means fewer dollars for other necessary social needs—addressing homelessness, transit and safe streets. A renovated library, built to 21st standards, more efficient, more practical, more welcoming than one entombed under a parking garage, invites a future of possibilities not mired in the past. Please join a presentation by Jayson Architects, at 4:30 p.m. Dec 13 at the Downtown library to get a clear picture of our renovated library’s potential.— Bob Morgan, Santa Cruz

Measure S budget limits size of library renovation

Santa Cruz Sentinel | As You See ItDecember 11, 2019https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2019/12/11/letter-measure-s-budget-limits-size-of-library-renovation/

The recent Mesiti-Miller letter about the downtown Library cherry-picks misleading partial quotes from the final Jayson Architecture analysis, which has not yet been reviewed by the Library Subcommittee. A full reading of the report, indicates that the base renovation proposal is feasible within the city’s budget, and added amenities would require further fundraising. It is limitations of the Measure S budget that constrains the size of the renovation, not the condition of the building.

There has been no comparable apples-to-apples analysis prepared for the library-in-a-garage proposal. Until that is completed and reviewed by the Subcommittee, no one knows what can be built in the ground floor of a yet to be designed parking garage, nor how much it would cost.

It would be premature and irresponsible to decide on a vaguely conceived library in a parking garage in the absence of a complete and accurate comparison of the two options.— Michael Lewis, Santa Cruz

Wait for library analysis, don’t spread untruths

Don’t Bury The Library refutes the latest bundle of untruths from garage-library proponents.There is no reduction in computer workstations, no lost opportunity to create a meaningful teen space and no reduced workspaces for kids to do homework. The opposite is true. It is false to say the proposed community meeting room is smaller.

Floor plans show the meeting room to be larger. There is no drastic reduction to the genealogy space. The architects never said that most of the library programs and services would be reduced by 30%. It is not true that current downtown library staff will have to be housed elsewhere. Floor plans show several staff areas on both floors, upgraded and more efficiently placed in a remodeled library.

Yes, a careful review of costs and benefits of each option is imperative. How about we wait for that information before spinning any more deprecating tales about the remodel.

— Jean Brocklebank, Santa Cruz

What costs were included in library proposal?

Santa Cruz Sentinel | As You See ItNovember 23, 2019

The article about Jayson Architecture’s proposal to reconstruct the existing Downtown Library at the Civic Center (Nov. 19) had one jaw-dropping phrase. It alluded to “a cost-effective recommendation” to build the library in a parking garage where the Farmers’ Market is now held.

As consultants well know, any claim of cost-effectiveness hinges on what costs and what effects are included in the calculation.

Was the cost of sacrificing natural light by building under a parking garage included? What about the environmental effects of thousands of tons of concrete consumed to build a parking garage? Or the opportunity costs of spending $81 million on the garage (not counting the library) when that money could be used for more pressing needs? Or the effects of moving the market to a less desirable location? Losing 18 beautiful trees? Just asking.— John Hall, Santa Cruz

You want some affordable housing with that?

by Stephen KesslerRemember Downtown Forward? That was the organization or civic group or marketing slogan formed a few months ago, organized by Councilwoman Cynthia Mathews, whose main purpose was to promote the mixed-use garage-library-housing thing on Lot 4 in downtown Santa Cruz. Downtown Forward as a brand name appears to have disappeared, but perhaps its agents have just gone underground to operate independently. In any event they have mounted their final offensive via Op-Eds and letters on this page promoting their Taj Garage, which now prominently includes “affordable housing,” everybody’s political magic words.

Originally the garage was a garage because we were told we desperately needed the parking, and to build a new library into it would save big bucks by pooling various resources. “Staff,” City Manager Martín Bernal told me, came up with this brilliant concept, no doubt because they sincerely thought it was best for the city. But a lot of local people did not agree and the idea was sent back to whatever committee rethinks bad ideas. Presto change-o! “Affordable housing” was added into the mix, and now it is neither the garage nor the library that gets top billing, but affordable housing.

I have asked before why, if we needed parking so badly, we can now sacrifice hundreds of parking spaces for floors and floors of apartments where cars were supposed to be parked. No answer has been forthcoming. But everybody loves affordable housing, so as an artificial sweetener to the garage-library we now are told to expect a lot of affordable housing besides.

The fact that the current library can be rebuilt as a fresh component of a renovated and revived Civic Center—the Civic Auditorium also to be updated and remodeled—doesn’t seem to matter to those, like Mathews (who happens to own a historic house kitty-corner from the proposed library-garage, which disqualifies her from voting as a council member but not as an orchestrator for the development), hell-bent on parking the library in a towering concrete behemoth.

Whether they can’t see the forest for the trees, or the cars for the apartments, or they’re just so fixated on their bottom line that they can’t see what’s in front of them, these wellmeaning community leaders, instead of just leaving the library out of it where it belongs, have added affordable housing because who could be against that? But what exactly does “affordable housing” mean? And affordable to whom? A schoolteacher? A police officer? A restaurant worker? A hotel housekeeper? A firefighter? A store clerk? A disabled homeless person? What’s affordable to one of these might not be affordable to another. So who decides what is affordable to whom, and on what basis?

Homeless-rights activists and property-rights advocates have this much in common: they all love affordable housing. What’s not to love? It can rationalize whatever you want to do. Who finances, designs and builds such housing, and who if anyone profits, or breaks even, or writes it off, is seldom explained. The mixed-use library- housing-garage promoters have no design, no plans, no builder, no bids and no idea what their chimera will cost, and therefore they can’t honestly guarantee anything about it, least of all that it will be in any way affordable to anyone.

Staff, the city, Councilwoman Mathews and Downtown Forward should think ahead for quality of civic life and leave Lot 4 to be redesigned and developed as a public plaza, for much less money than a multi-story garage and for far lighter environmental impact; leave the library where it is and custom-rebuild it to the patrons’ needs per a proposal already sketched by a prospective architect; and rebuild several stories taller the two large two-story parking structures already scheduled to be “decommissioned.” Other city lots can be developed as affordable housing if creative planners and housing promoters can figure out a way to pay for it. That means putting together deals with banks and developers and government entities that can benefit from doing good.

Stephen Kessler’s column appears on Saturdays.

Guest Commentary:

New downtown library proposal looks promising

The recent preliminary report from Jayson Architecture to the Library Subcommitte was a surprise for two reasons. First, the Jayson plan provides much more than a renovation. It entails extensive rebuilding of the library within the Measure S budget of $27 million. It will look brand new in every respect. Second, while being smaller (30,000 sf) than the existing inefficiently used building, the enhanced library will still provide the programs and services that the public has come to expect from a modern library.

The downsizing and upgrading turn out to have many unforeseen benefits. For example reduction in overall library square footage, while fulfilling all library functions, will result in future operational and maintenance cost savings, also reducing environmental impacts.

So, what does a smaller two-story library look like and how will it function? The answer is that it will look beautiful and function well.

The building will be brought up to code. There will be new HVAC, plumbing, fire sprinklers, and all new ADA bathrooms.

The roof will be replaced. The HVAC will be placed on the roof, freeing up space in the building.

The main core building structure is sound. The perimeter ground floor sections that need some seismic upgrade will be removed, leaving a structurally sound two story building of 30,000 square feet.

The plan consolidates the library within the Civic Center by redesigning the library entrance to face City Hall. Extensive new glazing on that west-facing wall will bring natural light into the library. The same is planned for the south-facing wall. The entrance lobby is enlarged and sunny.

A second entrance off an enlarged parking lot is planned.

A new, larger, first floor community meeting room can remain open after hours for more flexibility. There will be several smaller meeting spaces.

Teens will have their own dedicated space, separate from the children’s space.

Although no alternative for the downtown library will be a LEED certified building, due to constraints of Measure S funds, energy efficiency can be obtained in many ways, not the least being that a smaller library requires less lighting, heating and cooling.

The industry standard for maintenance and operation of libraries is $10/square foot/year. With a reduction of 12,000 sf the smaller library can save $120,000/year on maintenance.

Countywide Library Administrative services (including IT) will not be housed in the downtown library. So they will not be affected by the Jayson plan.

Right now there is no way to evaluate a library in a mixed-use structure. There are no floor plans, visuals, cost models or estimates, or listing of the extensive tenant improvements beyond the shell for such a library. Abe Jayson cautioned the subcommittee that tenant improvements are more costly than people realize.

The mixed-use project seems to change weekly but the subcommittee still has no figures to compare the two likely library alternatives. Without essential information for a garage-library, the subcommittee cannot possibly recommend a preference for a library in the mixed-use project. However, it can heed Abe Jayson’s concern that the clock is running out for Measure S funding and acknowledge the benefits of a beautifully rebuilt library. It is time to finally separate the library from the parking garage-retail-housing project.

The Real Battle Over Downtown Santa Cruz Parking

The city’s proposed parking garage and library project hints at deeper divides over housing and transportation

ByJacob PierceGood TimesOctober 22, 2019

A familiar cliché unfolds whenever the topic of a city proposal to build a new downtown parking garage comes up.

The discussion, at first glance, appears to represent a typical split in Santa Cruz’s liberal politics. This culture-war framing has Santa Cruz’s leftier progressives fighting against the garage, painting it as a vestige of outdated, car-centric thinking. Meanwhile, Democratic moderates and centrists support the garage, as they see it as an important piece of infrastructure to support downtown retail and events. While there may be truth to both sides of this dichotomy, it isn’t a great way to actually think about the project. There’s more nuance to it.

College Students Just Want Normal Libraries

Schools have been on a mission to reinvent campus libraries—even though students just want the basics.

The AtlanticAlia WongOct 4, 2019

Survey data and experts suggest that students generally appreciate libraries most for their simple, traditional offerings: a quiet place to study or collaborate on a group project, the ability to print research papers, and access to books. Notably, many students say they like relying on librarians to help them track down hard-to-find texts or navigate scholarly journal databases. “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers,” as the writer Neil Gaiman once said. “A librarian can bring you back the right one.”

A little over a year ago I received an email from Santa Cruz City Councilwoman Cynthia Mathews inviting me to meet her for coffee and conversation. “I have no particular agenda,” she wrote, “beyond wanting to understand where you’re coming from on some issues, and conversely sharing with you some of what’s shaping my thinking and actions on City issues.”

We met, and of course the main issue on her no-particular- agenda was the mixed-use library-garage about which where I was “coming from” had been spelled out repeatedly in this column, and on which she had brought a pile of documents to enlighten me as to why the garage-library I had described as a “monstrosity” was in fact a good thing for Santa Cruz, and she had the official reports to prove it. Congenially enough we questioned each other’s assumptions and conclusions about this provocative project and parted unchanged in our respective positions.

More recently Mathews— disqualified from deliberating or voting on the mixeduse thing (which now includes “affordable housing” as political window-dressing) due to her conflict of interest as the owner of property close to the site—helped put together a group called “Downtown Forward” to lobby in the theater of public opinion for the fivestory garage-library-housing structure to replace the mature magnolias and liquid amber trees currently gracing the parking lot on that site (Cedar and Lincoln streets, home to the Farmers Market and Antique Faire). I wrote about the pep rally Mathews orchestrated launching Downtown Forward a few weeks ago, and asked a few questions I didn’t get a chance to raise at the event, which was promoted as a “press conference” but allotted no time or space for questions from the press.

Since then I contacted Mathews again and she agreed to talk via email, so I sent some questions she could answer in writing to be sure she was not misquoted, but our agreed-upon deadline has passed and she hasn’t replied. Perhaps some of my questions were more pointed than she anticipated—not that there’s any secret about my viewpoint. As I’ve written, I think moving the library out of Civic Center and parking it downtown under a garage, no matter how dolled up, is a lousy idea for a lot of reasons I don’t have room to repeat here.

But libraries and garages aside, perhaps (I can only guess) it was the political questions that gave her pause. Questions like this: “Your recusal from City Council deliberations and vote on the mixed-use project and your campaign to promote it outside the council … looks like an end-run around council protocol. Have you considered resigning from the council in order to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest?”

And this: “If Chris Krohn or Drew Glover were operating as you are outside council boundaries to promote a project or policy they were disqualified from voting on, do you think the community would approve, or would the people supporting a recall find that additional grounds for their removal?”

I am no fan of Krohn or Glover, whose self-righteous behavior as “woke” demagogues has inspired a backlash that threatens to eject them from office, but I think the recall is a waste of time. Nor am I calling for the recall of Mathews, who is equally lusty for power but far more skilled at leveraging it via outside- the-chamber machinations. (I witnessed the technique myself in our coffee meeting.) What bothers me is that behavior which would not be tolerated from avowed leftists like Glover and Krohn is seen as no problem by the business-friendly liberals that are her base of support.

Mathews’s flagrant violation of ethical boundaries in her Taj Garage campaign strikes me as far more egregious in its deviousness and likely negative long-term impact on downtown Santa Cruz than anything Krohn or Glover could ever accomplish. Why the mixed-users and recallers have not targeted her as well is a question they should ask themselves.

In calling renovation of the library an utter fantasy, Ms. Nagel flew the alarmist asbestos flag, then added that walls of the library would have to be made thicker to meet earthquake standards. A 2014 Seismic Evaluation of the library by structural engineers dispels both of Ms. Nagel’s uninformed claims. Even Noll and Tam spoke of their surprise at the seismic soundness of the building.

After our 7.1 earthquake, repairs to the library building included comprehensive asbestos abatement. A copy of the engineer’s report can be found on Don’t Bury The Library’s website, on a page called the Asbestos Myth.

Claiming the library is riddled with asbestos is a scare tactic. If there really was a risk of dangerous asbestos, would the City of Santa Cruz have allowed all library patrons and library staff to occupy the building for the past 30 years? Wouldn’t that be a huge liability on the part of the city?

— Jean Brocklebank, Santa Cruz

Healthy Stack

Good TimesOpinion: August 14, 2019Letters to the Editorhttps://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&pubid=3a8c527a-e69f-42ef-8e2e-019544fa164bIn your article “Booking Ahead,” (GT, 7/10), a partner of the firm designing the new Capitola Library is quoted as saying something to the effect that, “libraries will no longer be oppressive spaces with 8-ft. tall shelves stacked top to bottom … with old dusty books,” right, Mr. Noll? It sounds like you are not a frequent or recent user of your own public library. If you were, you would know that no stacks are 8-ft. tall, the books are displayed, not crammed, and the adult patrons find the quiet of the library to be restful, serene, and—if anything—liberating rather than oppressive. The most frequent complaint of adult patrons is that someone else is making too much noise. Quiet is refreshing. The presence of physical books—whether en masse or as individual volumes—creates a special atmosphere that can’t be replaced by screens. Mr. Noll seems to know this on some level, as he says he has incorporated high ceilings in the design to “give a sense of grandeur, uplifting spirits.” Good. That is actually what libraries are about. The role of public libraries may be expanding to include more functions as a community center, may be digitizing its collections, but I hope it never loses its fundamental identity as a place of peace, quiet, education, inspiration—and that it always hasbooks.Martha DahlenSan Jose

Librarians facing new tasks say crisis isn’t in the catalog

Spokeswoman Amy Geduldig notes that the library “is not a social services organization, and its staff are not medical or mental health professionals.”

By Ali SwensonThe Associated Press (as reprinted in the Sentinel)9 August 2019

When Jackie Narkiewicz switched careers and became a librarian, she thought she’d spend her workdays “drinking hot beverages and discussing literature with people.”

But during her 16 years as a librarian on New York’s Long Island, Narkiewicz has also faced a man threatening to kill her and a patron screaming while cutting her own hair in the bathroom. For her job, Narkiewicz has been trained in CPR and mental health crisis response and carries the opioid overdose antidote naloxone with her.As libraries nationwide contend with a surge in patrons seeking refuge in the stacks because of poverty, drug addiction or mental illness, a growing number of institutions have social workers on staff.

It’s the latest step in an evolution that libraries have been dealing with for years as homelessness and the opioid crisis reach emergency levels and patrons have come to rely on libraries as free, safe spaces open to all.

Though homelessness has seen some declines in the U.S. since the recession, it has surged in cities like Seattle, where a homelessness state of emergency and a spike in questions from library patrons about things like housing, transportation and food led the public library system to hire its first full-time social worker in 2018.Other libraries, unable to afford such a step, have trained librarians to handle certain emergencies themselves. That’s caused some debate among library workers about whether they’re being asked to adapt to an evolving job or to do work that goes too far beyond their expertise.

“I can get you a phone number, I can get you a book you want ... but when you’re dealing with mental health issues, I don’t feel appropriately trained for it,” Narkiewicz said.

A few master’s degree programs for aspiring librarians have classes on mental health, but most don’t. To help fill in the gaps, an estimated 40plus library systems have full-time social workers on staff, according to Whole Person Librarianship, an organization that tracks such partnerships.

At the Queens Public Library in New York City, resident social worker Shantel Johnson oversees a team of library case managers, but she’s also available to help librarians communicate with struggling patrons, connect visitors to services or just listen to people.

“They’ll open up to staff, and staff is doing 14 different things,” Johnson said. She says she regularly helps patrons who are homeless, experiencing abuse or having trouble applying for jobs.

The Queens Public Library also started stationing New York University social work interns in some branches last year, as does the New York Public Library, which got its first interns two years ago.

Library patron Sofia Ciniglio was meeting twice weekly with an intern at a Manhattan branch last year for career advice. But their conversations eventually involved her family, feelings and personal life. The intern introduced Ciniglio to a library where she could learn Braille, which she’d been curious about.

“She was very much a good listener, very attentive, and she knew who I was and the nuances of how I go about things,” Ciniglio said.

The NYPL’s librarians, meanwhile, are trained to de-escalate conflicts but aren’t asked to do more indepth mental health crisis training.

Spokeswoman Amy Geduldig notes that the library “is not a social services organization, and its staff are not medical or mental health professionals.” The NYPL, the nation’s busiest library system, still hasn’t hired a full-time licensed social worker, though Brooklyn did in 2015 and Queens did in 2018.

In some libraries without professional social work help, employees are being asked to take on new tasks.At the San Diego Public Library, a state library grant has funded employee trainings in mental health first aid since 2016. Librarian Joseph Miesner says the training helped him personally when he came across a suicidal patron.

In small town Titusville, Pennsylvania, library director Justin Hoenke recently agreed with his library’s board that all staffers should be trained to administer naloxone if needed.

“This is a new requirement of the job,” Hoenke said. “If they’re not comfortable with it, they kind of have to reevaluate their life and their job. You have to change with the times.”

Fobazi Ettarh doesn’t see it that way. An academic librarian at Rutgers University in Newark, she says too many expectations can distract librarians from their work, and she personally wouldn’t feel comfortable as a first responder to an overdose. “It would just be a lot for my mental health,” she said.

Research suggests other librarians feel the same way. A 2018 survey of librarians in Pennsylvania found many reported they already felt stressed from trying to answer questions from patrons about mental health and social services, even without handling acute emergencies in the library.

Meanwhile, some librarians, like Amanda Oliver, have begged in vain for more preparation. Oliver said she quit her public library job in Washington when she asked supervisors for more training and “was largely ignored.”District of Columbia Public Library Executive Director Richard Reyes-Gavilan says Oliver’s branch offered at least two trainings related to mental health during her tenure, but the library is also “committed to doing even more” to support staff.

Despite fraught encounters with people in crisis, Narkiewicz, who works part time right now, still hopes to find a full-time job in the library field.

Why do the supporters of entombing the library in a parking garage find it necessary to mask their identity? The letter writer who falsely accused members of Don’t Bury the Library of disrupting the Forward Downtown presentation used another person’s name.

Last week “Chip” wrote that the city could create a new downtown centerpiece with the garage-library. If we knew his name, would we be less receptive to his arguments? Whoever the author is, the idea that a garage complex will be a centerpiece is hard to swallow.

Most likely it will be a massive building with all the charm of the county government center.

As Steve Kessler has pointed out, we already have an attractive centerpiece with city hall, the current library, and the Civic Auditorium. We should enhance what’s already there.— Larry Millsap, Santa Cruz

When is the City of Santa Cruz going to follow its Climate Action Plan and principles for all projects, not just some?

Reusing the current library building with a retrofit similar to the repurposing of the former Sentinel building is the most environmental choice the city can make. Cutting down carbon-storing heritage trees to make space for motor vehicles is a 1950s choice, not an environmental choice.

More than a dozen new parking spaces can be developed downtown for about $5,000/ space by squaring up sweeping intersection corners at Center/ Union/Chestnut Streets rather than by building a garage at $50,000 or more per parking space.

Stephen Kessler’s “Movers, shakers, marketers and persuaders” column, July 20, posed many of the unanswered questions Downtown Forward hoped to obscure in their highly stylized PR tsunami unleashed two weeks ago. Many more questions will follow as this group’s effort to foist a debt on residents of tens of millions of dollars to build a five-story garage atop a library, now transformed with “affordable housing units,” undergoes scrutiny.Measure S supporters are having a good laugh. Or maybe they’re angry. The 2013 Library Facilities Master Plan, commissioned, evaluated and approved by the Library Joint Power Board in the run-up to Measure S, magically morphed the Downtown Library into a different animal: five stories of cement parking garage, street level retail, affordable housing units and one library, all displacing the iconic Farmer’s Market. Voters should have read the Measure’s fine print to have anticipated this magisterial sleight of hand.— Bob Morgan, Santa Cruz

With the marketing expertise of Miller Maxfield Strategic Communications & Public Affairs, the fundraising skills of Friends of the Libraries’ Vivian Rogers and the political leverage of Cynthia Mathews of the Santa Cruz City Council, the new group Downtown Forward recently unveiled itself in a much promoted “Press Conference & Launch” to advocate for its primary project, the garage-library mixed-use thing on the big treeshaded parking lot at the corner of Cedar and Lincoln streets.

Councilwoman Mathews owns property within 500 feet of that corner, which according to California law constitutes a conflict of interest and therefore requires her removal from council deliberations and from voting on the mixed-use project. This hasn’t stopped her from campaigning aggressively for it on her own time, which she is doing as a leading force behind Downtown Forward. City Attorney Tony Condotti assured me this is not illegal.

Whether or not it is ethical is another question. If she has a conflict of interest as a council member, I leave it to the reader and social philosophers to ponder where that conflict goes when she exercises her role as the city’s most powerful politician in service of a project she’s legally prevented from voting on. Mathews and her allies are full speed- ahead on Downtown Forward as their chosen instrument to bend the public to their will— I mean, to influence public opinion.

Miller Maxfield, the PR firm, wrote and designed the sophisticated handout materials for the pep rally at the Museum of Art & History’s Secret Garden, where a host of “stakeholders” and spectators gathered to hear enthusiastic pitches from representatives of various interest groups—a school board head, a homeschooling mom, an affordable housing advocate, a downtown business owner, and leaders from Friends of the Library and the Chamber of Commerce.

The so-called press conference never happened. A press conference means taking and answering questions from the press. If the disruptive screaming of a behaviorally disturbed woman was to blame for ending the rally without questions, that is unfortunate, but according to Rogers, whom I spoke with afterward, questions were never on the agenda. (The Miller Maxfield materials do include a page of FAQs.) I wanted to ask Mathews a few questions, but she walked the other way when she saw me coming.

So within the limited space remaining, I’ll ask a few questions here.

With all the supposedly holistic planning being done for all of downtown, why has no plan been made, or revealed, for use of the allegedly decrepit (thanks to “deferred maintenance,” also known as municipal negligence) library building at 224 Church Street? If that structure can be renovated for another purpose, why not as a library? If the seismically sound building is to be torn down to make room for something else, how does that conform to the city’s “green” environmental ethos?

If “30-60 affordable housing units,” according to Miller Maxfield, are to be included in the mixed-use parking library, how many parking spaces will those units displace? So those parking spaces aren’t as desperately needed as we’ve been told? And what exactly does “affordable” mean?

How do you know how much the new library (and whatever comes with it) will cost if you haven’t even hired an architect or contractor? Are generic estimates of cost per square foot credible in a project this conceptually ambitious with no existing design? How is cutting down 11 mature trees to be replaced by a concrete structure a “green” building practice? Why can’t existing parking lots—including the proposed new Front Street site of the farmers market—be heightened where they are to accommodate new needs for parking?

Isn’t Downtown Forward just a lobbying arm of the city and some business people—and of ethically conflicted council member Mathews—intended to influence ongoing deliberations of the council’s library subcommittee?How much money, and whose, above and beyond the $2,500 contract with Miller Maxfield, will be spent on public relations for Downtown Forward?

It’s unfortunate that the writer of a recent letter to the editor did not fact check their July 13 letter before making false accusations about Don’t Bury the Library (DBTL). The screaming woman who disrupted the Downtown Forward event is in no way associated with DBTL. She is neither a member nor a supporter of DBTL. Furthermore, Mills accuses “other Don’t Bury the Library folks” of screaming and “deplorable and undemocratic behavior” during the meeting. In fact, DBTL members repeatedly tried to reason with the screaming woman, and then spent considerable time reassuring others that she has no connection with DBTL whatsoever. A member of the DLAC, who knew the woman was not with us, acknowledged that DBTL has acted respectfully throughout the entire Downtown Library planning process.— Michael Lewis, Santa Cruz

Re: “Downtown Forward initiative kicks off Museum of Art & History.” This front-page piece is PR for the pro-garage people masquerading as a balanced article. Why did the Sentinel take this position, and when will you do a similar piece on Don’t Bury the Library?— Steve Hill, Santa Cruz

A win for the library, parking and the community"Fortunately, we can choose a win-win for the library, for business, and for the community."

There is a perception that downtown Santa Cruz has a shortage of parking spaces. Customers come into our business, often late for their appointments, stating, “I just couldn’t find any parking.” Employees who arrive after 10 a.m. or who leave for lunch and try to get back in, often tell me, “There are no parking spaces left.” Yet an independent parking study commissioned by the City of Santa Cruz found that there is plenty of parking downtown during the peak hours. We have spot shortages, but not an overall shortage. The study found that parking supply will be adequate to meet demand ten years into the future, even with new development downtown and loss of surface parking lots.

What we are lacking is careful parking management.

Parking management would price parking according to the popularity of the location. Monthly permit holders would not be assigned to prime locations. Currently, the Locust Street Garage near our business frequently fills to capacity on weekday afternoons. When the garage is full, 60% of spaces are occupied by monthly permit holders. Thankfully, the city has taken steps to incentivize those of us who work downtown to consider alternatives to solo auto commutes. In addition to raising parking rates, the city has approved free bus passes and Jump Bike credit for all downtown employees, a program that has been successful in other cities. We appreciate these steps of progress. As several consultants have advised the city, the results of these measures should be evaluated before planning a new parking structure. UCSC professor and parking researcher Adam Millard Ball advised the city we are in an interim period before automated vehicles cause a large drop in parking demand.

With proper parking management, we can all win. A new parking structure that would cost the Downtown Parking District $87 million in debt payments over 30 years would be rendered unnecessary. The surplus funds could be used for the library to complete the renovation in its existing location and support housing for the downtown workforce. We could offer the farmers market a permanent home at its current location. The site could be improved to become a Town Commons and event space.

People are tribal. We need to gather. Historically we do that by gathering in spots where there is the interconnection of corridors. We have visited memorable cities, where public plazas matter. In many American cities today, including Santa Cruz, the connective tissue that binds communities and anchors neighborhoods is missing or in need of repair. A proven remedy is to create public space that allows people to connect and cultivate trust. This space allows us to refresh and feel in touch with nature.

The farmers market lot is an example of a great location to do that. With more residential development planned for downtown, it becomes even more important to create an outdoor living room for the urban family to gather. A revitalized library and farmers market will create a welcoming aspect to people of all backgrounds, drawing visitors downtown. And that’s good for business.

The Climate Action Plan, approved by the city in 2012 has a goal to “Reduce GHG emissions by reducing vehicle miles traveled, decreasing single occupancy vehicle travel, and increasing the use of alternative fuels and transportation options.” A new multi-story garage does just the opposite. Fortunately, we can choose a win-win for the library, for business, and for the community. We can have a safe, walkable, convivial place to be together.

By Sandra NicholsTwo minutes is a short time to make one’s case to the Santa Cruz City Council using concise sentences and no unnecessary humor. Time yourself to stay within your two minutes. Adding casual remarks, you’ll not be able to complete your thoughts with the kicker ending you wrote. This happened to me on May 14. I went to speak about the downtown library and the proposal to move it into a multistory parking barn, as big as all the adjoining parking lots from Lincoln to Cathcart that accommodate the farmers’ market on Wednesdays.I am a user of the downtown library, walking there even though parking is always available. I have used our public libraries ever since I moved to Santa Cruz County in 1970 and got my library card, a typed cardboard version of what we have today.At the library, there was an innocuous plaque indicating the original library, built in 1904, was a Carnegie Library. It was a stately mansion for books. Andrew Carnegie paid for the construction of 2,509 libraries throughout the United States and in countries scattered around the globe. He funded library construction for 46 years ending in 1929; his benevolence was referred to as the “golden shower.” That library, designed by a local architect and made out of huge blocks of limestone, was damaged in the 1906 earthquake but was not demolished until 1966 when the current structure replaced the original.That history clings to our current library and its site, although the current design is ’60s style.Whoever had the idea to relocate the downtown library to the bottom floor of a parking garage probably doesn’t frequent their local, free public library. If they did, they would know how important atmosphere is to quiet reading and selecting of books. I have toured newly-built libraries in other cities and I have never even heard of one inside a parking garage. This irks me.How can you enjoy a library in the oppressive atmosphere and fumes of a parking garage? It would be stifling, as would the horrendously massive building that would result from this proposal.Thankfully, a council subcommittee has been formed to take input from the community over a 6-month period. The list of who will give input includes library staff, but not library users! At least we have time to reconsider remodeling the library in its current location, as implied in the ballot measure approved by voters — the library bond — causing many to call it a “bait-andswitch”.There remains one fascinating question. What is the city planning on doing with the current library building? I don’t know, but its proximity to the city offices leads me to believe city officials would love to annex the structure to expand their workspace.And finally, how can you reasonably cram a complicated, rational argument into a two-minute speech for the Santa Cruz City Council? You’d get three minutes to share your thoughts with the Board of Supervisors, Capitola City Council and local school boards, including the County Board of Education. Is the City Council less interested in community input? So it would seem.Sandra Nichols lives in Santa Cruz.

The newly formed group Downtown Forward is advocating a large-scale re-imagining of downtown. Their publicity material claims this project will address housing, jobs, parking and the library. Such wide-ranging ambitions should be the job of the Planning Department. If they deem it necessary to update the Downtown Plan, it should be done via facilitated community meetings that include all residents, not just some private individuals and select businesses. It should go through the usual commission, department and Council approval. A cut and paste approach to the re-arranging of significant public spaces seems a poor substitute for thoughtful and inclusive planning. Is there money in the Planning Department. budget for a series of community meetings to revise the Downtown Plan? If not, Downtown Forward’s theoretical project must remain just that and the Library Subcommittee must be given the time to do the work it was charged with by the City Council.— Judi Grunstra, Santa Cruz

Massive garage library is quite disheartening

Santa Cruz Sentinel | As You See ItJuly 3, 2019

Libraries, for 65 of my 73 years of life, have been havens.

In Springfield Ohio’s Warder Library, I went from sitting on low stools in the upstairs children’s section to exploring Ayn Rand or Leon Uris in my teens downstairs. I worked in my college library’s stacks, reshelving books. When I read a librarian’s pronouncement that books are not the reason people use and need libraries, I’m stunned. Perhaps in a public school setting where study environments are necessary but limited, libraries are less for borrowing than for the quiet and varied resources found there. But I go to my library at least once a week; often more frequently, borrowing books, films, returning items and browsing. They even ship requests for easy accessibility. The idea of a massive concrete garage-library makes me deeply anxious. That that building will sit in the heart of commercial enterprise is quite disheartening.— Susan I. Stuart, Santa Cruz

Anyone can share their thoughts about the library

Santa Cruz Sentinel | As You See ItJune 19, 2019

In her commentary about lack of time to meaningfully speak at City Council meetings, Sandra Nichols mentioned the newly formed Council Library Subcommittee. She said its job, in part, is to take input from the community on the downtown library over a six-month period. With its first meeting on June 19, this is mostly true, although its closer to 4 1/2 months before the Subcommittee will have to report to the full Council. Sandra also wrote that the list of who will give input includes library staff, but not library users. This is not true. Weekly library patrons from the Don’t Bury The Library campaign have been invited to speak with the subcommittee, along with other stakeholder groups.

Kris Houser wrote that the downtown Watsonville library occupies the first two floors of a parking garage. Not true. The multi-level garage is attached to the side of the City Hall building which houses city offices, council chamber, courts, the library, and a large community room. I’ve visited many times and the parking garage is never even half full. It was over-built and can’t be re-purposed with housing or offices on the upper floors because the parking floors all are sloped ramps.

Modern garage designs use horizontal floors so as parking needs decline with self-driving/ on-demand (“Uber”) cars and minibuses displacing many personally owned cars, as is predicted, the building can be converted to better uses. The proposed Santa Cruz garage/library has sloped parking floors alongside and above the library.

​ It will be a boondoggle if built. — Stanley Sokolow, Santa Cruz

Imagining a Better Downtown

By Stephen KesslerSanta Cruz SentinelMay 18, 2019

Santa Cruz city and library officials still eager to build their Taj Garage “mixed-use” five-story block-long parkinglibrary- thing are always talking about a big-picture plan for downtown, of which the garage is just one component.

At the same time, they claim that the seismically sound existing library cannot be affordably renovated but they haven’t yet decided what to do with that building once the library has been moved out.

This strikes me as either incompetent planning or outright deception, as if they are hiding from the public their intentions for that property.

​ Councilwoman Cynthia Mathews is recused from voting on the garage-library but evidently not from campaigning aggressively for it despite her conflict of interest—she owns property nearby—that disqualifies her from deliberations at council meetings. The ethics and legality of her political activity on behalf of the mixed-use chimera is a question for another column.

Meanwhile, city officials have spoken of “decommissioning” two existing downtown two-story garages to be replaced elsewhere by their dream mega-garage. Which raises the question of why one or both of the existing twostory garages can’t be rebuilt a few stories taller. On the same physical footprint city planners could increase downtown parking capacity by raising the profile of these garages to match the rising skyline of new apartments that give downtown its increasingly urban density.

The big new residential complexes at either end of Pacific Avenue and the one planned for the corner of Pacific and Laurel (and the supposedly “affordable” one next door to that) will continue to alter the lowrise small-town feel of our city, and I don’t see anything wrong with that, especially when the alternative is higher density in the neighborhoods and suburbs. As in most cities, taller buildings should be clustered in central commercial districts where foot traffic would bring customers into ground-floor stores, cafes and restaurants.In such an urban environment it is crucial to have architectural breaks where open space exists to make the landscape more livable. Sunlight, trees, pathways, benches, shapely landscaping naturally complement the solid constructed space surrounding it. The human activity drawn to one is drawn to the other, creating a self-reinforcing dynamic of beneficial social and economic energy.

The obvious place for such a break in the vertical skyline is the block where the city has its sights set on the aforementioned garage and where antiautomobile activists envision a town commons designed organically around the mature magnolias, incorporating some parking and space for the weekly farmers market already operating there as well as other community cultural and social events.

The closest thing we have to such a square is Mission Plaza Park in front of Holy Cross Church, but that is just beyond downtown in a noncommercial neighborhood. An open space of that kind, kitty-corner from Mathews’s conflicted property, from Lincoln to Cathcart streets along Cedar, could be the central draw of a newly revitalized downtown.

Whether you’ve just arrived and reside in one of the new developments or have lived here for generations and watched the dramatic changes over recent decades, given the reality of the demand, ask yourself what kind of downtown you’d like to see in the years to come—one organized around the automobile with a humongous garage at its center, or one that places parking where it is already only higher, and is otherwise designed for pedestrians and outdoor cultural life.

​ City and garage-library advocates claim that their monster is the only affordable option, but it’s just a matter of political will to design alternative concepts at comparable budgets, save and renovate the library where it is, rethink parking needs and adjust to fit reality, and create a common gathering place where tourists and locals alike could feel at home.

Santa Cruz not as progressive as we think

Santa Cruz Sentinel | As You See ItFebruary 17, 2019

Santa Cruz considers itself one of the most progressive of progressive counties on the West Coast, and on the cutting edge of arresting climate change. But recently, county supervisors voted to approve a large auto dealership at an already busy intersection in lieu of affordable housing construction, the Santa Cruz City Council approved a six-story parking garage (and library) downtown, and now the Regional Transportation Commission has selected a plan that will provide for diesel freight and tourist trains to run the length of the county. This looks to me like we’re going backwards.

Perhaps it’s time we leftcoasters practiced the same thoughtful self-examination that we preach. We need to look toward a future where parking demand is declining and a train on a single track costs too much to move too few. Shouldn’t we align our plans with our values?— Nadene Thorne, Santa Cruz

Library Advisory Commission Meeting

The Library Advisory Commission meets Monday, February 11 at 6:30 pm, in the upstairs meeting room of the Downtown Branch Library, 224 Church Street, in Santa Cruz. Click HERE for the Agenda.

Agenda items include: Spotlight on Collections; the 2019-2020 Library budget; roles and responsibilities of the Friends of the Library; and the role of the Library Advisory Commission.

Stripping library would be a waste of resources

As You See ItSanta Cruz SentinelFebruary 5, 2019

While I have generally applauded Stephen Kessler’s commentaries on the controversial library-in-a-fivestory- parking-garage project, I am concerned by his suggestion that the current library be stripped to its structural framework and then rebuilt. Not only is this wasteful and environmentally unsound (sending all the stripped stuff to the landfill), it is financially way beyond the $28 million budget provided by taxpayers through Measure S, by an order of at least $10 million, perhaps more. Kessler also intoned a Library Czar.

The county-wide system does not have a czar. It has a very capable and approachable Library Director. It also has a four member Library Joint Powers Board, a Library Facilities Financing Authority, and a seven member Library Advisory Commission, established by the Joint Powers Board.Our Don’t Bury The Library campaign has recently submitted to the city council our Blueprint for a Restored and Revitalized Downtown Library for the 21st Century and Beyond.

It is a recipe of sorts on how to move forward in the next six years, culminating in a downtown library that will beneficial and be beautiful, too.— Jean Brocklebank, Santa Cruz

Kessler’s take on the library hits the mark

As You See ItSanta Cruz SentinelFebruary 5, 2019

Thanks to Stephen Kessler for “Let’s have a new Civic Center, not a garage.” Make it a place for people not cars. At the current site it could be part of a more vibrant Santa Cruz Civic Center. I especially like moving the library entrance to Center St. facing the lovely City Hall garden. Perhaps the Farmers Market and Antique Faire could stay at their current site.

We have a new City Council so the time is now for all who think the garage/library project is a big mistake to speak up. Ask the Council to pursue a new Civic Center with a library we can be proud of in its current location.

As Kessler mentioned “the difference between the social values and qualities of life embodied in a new Civic Center and those represented by a giant garage couldn’t be clearer.”— Isabelle Scott, Santa Cruz

Let’s have a new Civic Center, not a garage

By Stephen KesslerSanta Cruz Sentinel

One promising thing about the new City Council in Santa Cruz is that, unlike the previous council, they don’t appear to be predisposed to build a monstrous “mixed-use” Taj Garage with the main branch of the public library in it on the current site of the weekly downtown Farmers Market and the monthly Antique Faire — the closest thing we have to a public plaza. The mixed-use euphemism never fooled anyone; it was just a way of putting lipstick on a conceptual monstrosity, a garage- library whose only redeeming aspect was that it might save the city some money in construction costs.

Apart from the contradiction between the city’s delusions of greenness and the globe-warming reality of 600 carbon-spewing cars stacked in five stories of a block-long concrete behemoth, the plan to move the library from its current, appropriate location in Civic Center was a bad idea to begin with.

A few months ago I wrote, with only slight satirical exaggeration, an architectural fantasy of my dream library-garage. Now that such a project is in doubt, and the incompatible buildings can be properly separated — and the garage idea rethought — it’s time to take another look at how the seismically sound library at Church and Center streets, across from City Hall, could be renovated in a way that would be good for the city.

The Downtown Library Advisory Committee, while it neglected to include in its public opinion survey the question of whether people wanted a garage as the dominant architectural component, did elicit from the community what it would like in a new library. The City Council should make use of the DLAC study by passing along to a new architect, or several architects, the features the public has requested and the budget available through Measure S and other potential funding.

As with any remodeling project, different contractors will give different bids, so the estimate of costs is at best an educated guess. You can usually find a proposal that proves suitable if you tell the professionals how much you have to spend and what you want. If I were Library Czar I would recommend that the whole building at 224 Church St. be stripped to its structural framework and an entirely new interior designed in accordance with the community’s desires. I would also move the library’s main entrance to the Center Street side facing City Hall so for special occasions Church and Locust streets could be closed off to create a little Civic Center Plaza.

Renovation of the library could also be linked with the proposed remodel of the Civic Auditorium. Imagine the boost for civic pride in such a triple promise of renewal: the library, the Civic and Civic Center as a whole. As with the Cabrillo Festival’s Church Street Fair (which includes attractions on Center), the space created by turning the library to face City Hall would expand a natural gathering place for community events.

While I am not in favor of adding members to pre-existing committees, nor even to forming new committees, perhaps a volunteer Civic Center Renewal group could be formed of people already engaged in library or Civic improvement efforts and they could coordinate their agendas with the city, self-appoint or elect their own leadership team and spearhead a combined effort to renovate these historic buildings in the heart of Santa Cruz.

In addition to whatever is already available, parallel fundraising campaigns would be required to give both building plans the resources they need to realize their visions. For bureaucratic lack of imagination to fail to recognize the long-term benefits of such a valuable investment would be shortsighted when the prospect exists, in these contentious times, to bring people together in a project everyone could embrace with enthusiasm.The difference between the social values and qualities of life embodied in a new Civic Center and those represented by a giant garage couldn’t be clearer.

Stephen Kessler is the author of “Garage Elegies” and other books. His column appears on Saturdays.

Dear City Mothers and Fathers: I have yet to be reached by your rumored “outreach” campaign for community input on design suggestions for the proposed downtown Santa Cruz “mixed-use” parking behemoth, famously to include the flagship branch of our public library.

So please consider this column my way of reaching out to you.

If you ever succeed in building your Taj Garage, I hope it will include, for the sake of both utility and beauty, each of the following features.

As climate change stalks our seaside town and the San Lorenzo River rises over its levees to meet its storm surges and our economic center is a sitting duck in its floodplain, a rational, forward- looking plan is to place the library on the top floor. That way, when ground-floor parking is underwater, the library will be safely high and dry.

In addition, for a truly solidgold environmental seal of approval, you must preserve those global-cooling liquid amber and magnolia trees on the existing parking lot. To murder the trees to make room for more automobiles would blow your eco-credibility and reveal the real size of your carbon footprint. By saving the trees, at street level, you would not sacrifice a single parking space, though on the organically shaped second and third floors you may lose a few.

Along the Cedar Street façade of the fourth floor, you can place a few token “affordable” apartments, which you must admit were never more than a sweetener for the bitter concoction of the garage. And for the icing on that concrete cake (excuse my mixed-use metaphors), the crowning component, “a library for the future,” with an express elevator at either end, on Lincoln and Cathcart streets, to meet two vital needs: wheelchair access and discouragement of vagrants. There must also be a mile-long spiral ramp that runs around the fivestory building and serves as a cardio-workout track for patrons who want to get some exercise en route to sitting down at the computers upstairs.

And what an upstairs it will be, with plate glass all around and vaulted ceilings (no cars above!) and 360-degree views of the mountains and the bay. With enough festivals and spectacles mixed into its revolving penthouse ballroom — the stacks on tracks rolled back to reveal a dance floor — it will rival the MAH as a tourist attraction.

Of course, it will have room for hundreds of computers, or whatever the latest gadgets may be that give access to infinite information. The aforementioned stacks will hold an assortment of Bio-Optic Organized- Knowledge Sources (BOOKS). These wireless devices will come in handy during recurrent power outages due to the aforementioned climate changes.

The children’s area, directly above the crowns of the magnolias, with a plexiglass floor, will have an outdoorsy park-like feel, and at the other end of the top floor, teenagers will have a mixed-use study hall and skate park so they can engage in some physical activity between hypnotic fixation on their phones.And for adults, a rooftop terrace driving range where patrons can knock biodegradable golf balls into the bay, plus a full bar with special booths for book groups. Imagine bartender- librarians pushing carts stocked with books and booze.

These mixed-use-ologists can compete for honors inventing literary libations to match readers’ tastes: the Tolstoy Mule, the Huckleberry Gin Fizz, the Rum in the Lime of Cholera Mojito, the Sherlock Holmes, the Pride and Prejudice, the Finnegans Wake and other cocktails honoring forgotten works and authors.

This is a library people will flock to like seagulls to a landfill. How many more uses can be mixed into the structure is just a matter of our collective imagination; the sky’s the limit once your outreach has reached all the local amateur architects. And by the time it’s completed, when parking is no longer needed, the garage can be converted to a homeless shelter.

Stephen Kessler is the founder and former editor of The Redwood Coast Review, four-time winner of the PR Excellence Award from the California Library Association.

The library bait came first, the switch happened later

Santa Cruz SentinelOctober 7, 2018

Sean Campbell claims (Sentinel, Sept. 27) that there was no Downtown library “bait and switch” on 2016’s Measure S. He argues, “‘… construct/expand facilities where necessary’ is literally in the ballot text.”

So, before the measure passed, did anyone suggest it “necessary” to build a new downtown Santa Cruz library? Not that I can find.

A Sentinel editorial on March 27, 2016, asserted, “The tax … would allow the system to finally build two long-sought permanent branches, as well as remodel and renovate the aging downtown branch …”A Good Times article cited the interim library director: “The downtown Santa Cruz branch, the flagship of the system, requires a comprehensive renovation, O’Driscoll says …”And a May 19, 2016 “Our libraries/Our future” Facebook post claimed, “its antiquated wiring, obsolete heating, failed plumbing and outdated facilities will be completely renovated with Measure S funds.”There was the bait. Later came the switch.— John Hall, Santa Cruz

Council was steamrolled on library issue

September 26, 2018Santa Cruz Sentinel​Bingo, Stephen Kessler! It’s time to start naming names in the city administration. Sentinel says no attacking anyone. Deep throat said “follow the money.” There are two de facto mayors of Santa Cruz. Their well-oiled machine is responsible for the bait-and-switch. Oh yes, the city machine was feeling the “Don’t Bury the Library” burn. The city staffer pitched, it’s very unusual for all departments heads to sign off, but in the case of Taj Garage, “united we stand.” The City Council, city attorney and voters were steamrolled. I was praying for Patrick Siegman to stroll down the chamber aisles giving City Council his facts firsthand and the chutzpah they needed to switch. I agree, Stephen, the voters didn’t vote for a one-size-fits-all library. Name names and let’s make sure they are not on the list for bonuses!— Lynn Dunn, Santa Cruz

Kessler column right on about library/garage

September 26, 2108Santa Cruz Sentinel​Just a note of commendation for Stephen Kessler for his column. Not only is this garaged library a city management coup, it was accomplished in the face of clear evidence that more city parking garages could easily act as a magnet increasing traffic downtown. Not mentioned was the plan to double parking fees to help pay which will have the unintended consequences of reducing the parking demand by as much as 30 percent. All at a time when we need to get people out of cars on bikes and busses to reduce gridlock and carbon emissions. Moreover, what happens to the old library which is infested with asbestos and the like in need of $30 million in repairs?— Philip J. Crawford, Santa Cruz

City pulls off successful bait-and-switch

By Stephen KesslerSeptember 22, 2018

Santa Cruz Sentinel

The City of Santa Cruz (meaning city management) and its various collaborators deserve congratulations on successfully getting what they wanted with their “mixed use” garage-library’s recent approval by the City Council.

What started out as a humongous parking structure has got mixed into its as-yet-nonexistent architecture not just “a 21st-century library” but, to throw in something for everyone, “affordable housing” and possibly commercial spaces — never mind the abundance of empty storefronts downtown and the recurrent refrain from builders that affordable housing is not affordable to build without public funding.

Even without such token accoutrements, the garage will offer space to park more than 600 cars and be the building’s primary reason for being. Whether downtown Santa Cruz needs more parking, or will need it in the future, is an open question, but with the city’s plans to replace current surface parking with housing, they say those spaces also need to be replaced. Why the proposed housing can’t be built above existing lots, thereby preserving the parking, has not been explained.

The big accomplishment of the city has been to supposedly economize by folding the main branch of the public library into the garage’s ground floor. Currently located, as in most cities, in Civic Center, the library building’s fate is unrevealed.

When voters passed Measure S, the library bond measure, they were approving renovation and reconstruction of existing libraries in the system.

There was nothing in Measure S about moving the downtown branch into a garage.

Likewise when the Downtown Library Advisory Committee surveyed the public about what they would like in a new and improved library, the option of putting it under a five-story parking structure was not included in their choice of desired features. Library- garage advocates claim that such features can only be had in a “mixed-use” (garage) building, but that is nonsense.

Children’s rooms, teenage spaces, computer terminals, cafés and other modern conveniences can be designed into any new or renovated library.

There could even be room for some books.

Costs of any building can vary greatly depending on the design, the architects and the builders contracted for the job. Estimates are estimates, and are subject to change. By convenient coincidence, the one architectural firm consulted by the city found that the garage- library option pencils out closest to available funds.

No plans exist and costs at this point are speculative, so who knows whether a second or third architect or prospective building contractor would make the same calculation.

Buildings can be designed for a variety of budgets depending on what the customer wants.

The City of Santa Cruz (meaning administration, not necessarily the City Council or the citizens) knew what it wanted, convinced the council, and got its Taj Garage. Even though the public had little say in the matter — mostly in the form of “comments” after officials had already made up their minds — and nobody had asked for a garage-library, they were sold one by the time-honored tactic of bait-and-switch.

You want a new library? Of course, everyone would love to have a new library. Well, the only way you can have one is by putting it in a garage.

People were told to take one architect’s word that the existing library, thanks to decades of neglect, is too far gone to transform into something new and improved — forget Measure S — and so take it or leave it, garage-library or nothing (continued decrepitude and obsolescence). The deviousness of this sales strategy has been breathtaking, and now comes the phase of “community outreach” on the actual design of the building, whose cost the city would have us believe is predictable regardless of what it ends up looking like or what specific features it includes.

The story is far from over, and the bills have yet to be paid, and city officials still claim not to know what exactly they intend to do with the existing library building. I’ll be returning to this topic in the weeks and months ahead.

Stephen Kessler’s column runs on Saturdays.

Don’t garage up our downtown library

I am saddened that four City Council members approved more steps toward building a monumental new 600-space parking garage downtown. The price tag is $75,000/parking space or about $45 million in public funds, when $2.9 million in annual debt service is included. This hopelessly car-centric project is promoted as saving money because a downtown library could be bundled in for some additional $27 million.

This is an ugly plan to merge into one structure, a House of Knowledge and a Concrete Bunker of Cars that evades action on climate change.

If this is built, it would be appropriate to place a commemorative plaque on the ground floor, bearing a quote from the famous novelist Kurt Vonnegut. It shall read:

City problem’s will not be solved with garage

Not to be picky but the parking garage/library project approved 4-2 by the Santa Cruz City Council will not “solve three problems,” despite what the front-page Sentinel article (Sept. 13) claims.

The city’s affordable housing problem, I’m sorry to report, will not be “solved” by building a parking garage. The parking problem is meter and garage rates currently set at what look like 1975 prices. That’s not a problem to solve with $30 million of concrete.

As for the library, we can have a 21st century one without the bait-and-switch on bond Measure S, and convert the present farmers market to a permanent park and town square, with street vehicle bays used on certain days for the market, and otherwise for parking. Even better, close off Lincoln Street between Pacific and Cedar Streets for a gateway from Pacific Avenue.

Let’s make Santa Cruz for the future.— John Hall, Santa Cruz

Remodel the library, don’t throw it away

At its Sept. 11 meeting, the City Council will hear a multi-staff proposal to abandon the existing Downtown Library and build a new library as part of a parking garage building. Even worse, they propose to demolish the existing library, send it to the landfill and construct some unspecified new building in its place.

This project is an environmental travesty that flies in the face of existing environmental policy. Its construction will consume natural resources, producing more atmospheric carbon dioxide, and perpetuate outdated transportation management based on private automobiles.

The city now has more than $27 million to rectify decades of deferred maintenance, sufficient for a 21st century renovation of the existing building, by the Downtown Library Advisory Committee’s own findings. The City Council should reject this proposal and direct staff to remodel the existing Downtown Library as the flagship of a truly sustainable Downtown Santa Cruz.— Michael A. Lewis, Santa Cruz

Seek community input before not after

August 30, 2018Santa Cruz Sentinel

Of the many points to be disputed in the op-ed “Right Project, Right Place, Right Time,” the claim that there was “extensive public input” covers up what really took place — a deliberate effort to avoid hearing public opposition early in the process, which is logically when outreach should occur, rather than after decisions have been made. The Downtown Library Advisory Committee’s survey made no mention of relocating the library. At the one public forum held 10 days before the DLAC was going to make their recommendation, the public’s distaste for this project was expressed repeatedly, yet that unpleasant fact failed to make it into their report. This 10-member committee was not given the task of evaluating the city’s parking or housing needs. Both the public and City Council deserve a broader exploration of how to meet the city’s needs with a better project than this one.— Judi Grunstra, Santa Cruz

Questions for the city on the Taj Garage

With Santa Cruz City Manager Martín Bernal, Economic Development Director Bonnie Lipscomb, Friends of the Library Executive Director Vivian Rogers, various parking planners and some city council members all campaigning aggressively for their dubiously conceived garage-library “of the future” — including some “mixed uses” in the form of shops, offices and apartments — this monstrous project looks like a done deal despite significant popular opposition. But the city council has yet to vote and, who knows, some of our elected leaders may still have an open mind.

With that democratic hope, and with decisions yet to be made, it’s time to ask a few questions that demand honest answers from the powers that be before their Taj Garage has been railroaded into existence over the objections of public opinion and the principles of cultural and municipal common sense. Officials will quote the findings of the Downtown Library Advisory Committee, the single architectural firm consulted and assorted bean-counters to argue that the Great Garage is the only affordable option for a new library — based on no plans, no bids and no real knowledge of what anything will cost by the time it is actually built. Their hypothetical numbers are promotional propaganda more than verifiable facts. They are estimates based on wish-fulfillment in order to kill debate.

So, about the Civic Center, under the assumption that the library will be moved from that location: Dear City Fathers and Mothers, with all your long-range plans for the whole downtown, why can’t you tell us what you want to put in place of our public library? No one I have asked in a position to know this claims to have a clue, but that begs credulity and leads to speculation about what is being hidden in your agenda. So level with us: What do you want to do with the library and its lot? Tear it down? Build something else — and what, specifically? Renovate it for another purpose — and what, specifically? You owe us answers to these questions, and if you don’t know, then you need to figure it out and report to the public before this project goes to the council for approval.

With the new campaign to renovate the Civic Auditorium into a first-class all-around cultural and performance venue, a parallel (or kitty-corner) renovation of the existing library is a natural combination that the city should be proud to support: a forward-thinking and tradition-conserving development that could excite the imagination of the community. You talk about the future, but do you really want your legacy to be an obsolescent parking structure? Wouldn’t it be more future-worthy to make renovation of the library an integral part of a renascent Civic Center, thereby adding to the appeal of a freshly remodeled Civic?

With all the economic uncertainty caused by the president’s tax giveaways, trade wars and assaults on the environment, do you really have any credible idea how much your garage will cost? Whatever figures you can quote now from your handpicked experts, I would bet real money that they’ll prove inaccurate. Why not admit what you don’t know. Then we could talk about what would be best for our 21st-century city, and how to make it happen.Has it occurred to you, for example, to retrofit or rebuild the block-long two-story garage between Walnut and Church as the high-rise parking behemoth of your dreams? That would have the added benefit of covering up the back of the Rittenhouse Building — not to mention saving the trees on your target site between Lincoln and Cathcart. (“Trees come and go, like buildings,” an architect friend assures me, but I love those old magnolias, which will only grow bigger and more beautiful if you leave them alone.)

Before you close this deal with the council and ram through a decision that will result in a monumental mistake, please get back to us on these questions — here, in the pages of the Sentinel — with answers we can believe, not talking points.

Stephen Kessler’s column runs on Saturdays.

A bigger library is bad and more is too much

August 14, 2018Santa Cruz Sentinelhttp://www.santacruzsentinel.com/opinion/20180814/letter-a-bigger-library-is-bad-and-more-is-too-much I think the business of making the downtown library a showplace — a showy place — is bad business. It is all about the building as a show piece, for entertainment (oohing and aahing) rather than as a provider of collections management, technology stations, information dissemination and learning. The showy library building is another form of competitive entertainment. All the pictures we’ve been seeing of these showy new libraries are all about the building, with a small number of people scattered around (to make the building look even bigger?). This spaciousness seems to trump practicality (in budget terms) and is wasteful. In a financially strained future, bigger will be bad and more will be too much.

Improve, don’t destroy our downtown library

I gladly voted for the bond measure to improve our downtown library. I have used that library many times. I am willing to pay my taxpayers dollars to improve it.

I don’t remember any discussion during the campaign about destroying the library and building a new “21st century” building. I would not vote for that. I certainly would not vote for a library under a five-story garage. That is a ridiculous, incredulous idea.

What happened to the ideal of keeping Santa Cruz’s charm and uniqueness? Carmel is considered one of the “prettiest” cities in the nation. I’ll bet they don’t have a “21st century” library with a five-story garage on top.

The City Council will vote on this soon. Tell them we want to keep and improve the library in the existing building. We want to keep Santa Cruz a charming, unique and desirable place to live.

— Bill Malone, Santa Cruz

Leadership and fiscal responsibility

The City of Santa Cruz’s Frankensteinian megagarage-cum-library-of-the-future idea has entered its “outreach” phase, when city officials, employees and volunteers will be mobilized to sell this concept as the only hope for a new and improved flagship branch of our public library. You will be told that the 50-year-old library in Civic Center is unsalvageably decrepit thanks to “deferred maintenance” (irresponsible neglect), that its infrastructure is too far gone to repair and too expensive to replace, that it need not be across from City Hall and that moving it into the new parking behemoth is the fiscally responsible option for use of Measure S funds for library renovation.

You may recall the first mixed-use proposal floated by the city: to place the new library in the transit center. When that went over like a diesel bus off a bluff, city staff shifted their fiscal sights to the block-long parking lot on Cedar between Lincoln and Cathcart where they want to consolidate much of downtown parking into a gigantic garage. Tucking the library into it was win-win-win for the city: Everybody could save money and the city would gain the asset of the Civic Center lot as an “opportunity site” (with no revealed plan for its use). When this winning scenario bombed in the theater of public opinion, the city rebranded the project as “mixed use,” as if that’s a good thing no matter what you’re mixing.

You can tart it up all you want with shops and offices and apartments, but a 600-car garage five stories high is still a garage, and throwing in a library won’t dignify the parking but the parking will surely demean the dignity of the library. If mixed use is so great regardless of what is mixed, then why not mix a funeral home with an amusement park, or a church with a roller-derby dome, or a medical center with a smoking lounge. There may be no accounting for taste, but really, some things are just in bad taste.

It’s no secret that the city’s campaign is strictly cost driven, and that all the experts they’ve consulted and committees they’ve convened have come to the identical conclusion: that the old library must go, that the garage is the library’s last chance and that anyone who disagrees is not thinking like an accountant. Responsible leadership means making the right decisions about spending money — and that’s one reason the garage-library is such a lousy idea. Decision-makers’ responsibility is to invest wisely long term and not waste resources on a project the city will be embarrassed by when the public sees how hideous it is and demand for downtown parking diminishes and they’re stuck with an empty eyesore.

What we have here is a failure of imagination, an absence of vision and of civic leadership that actually leads and doesn’t merely follow the direction of career bureaucrats — bless their good intentions and professional skills, but they are not paid to have beautiful ideas. The executive branch of local government should creatively visualize what it wants to do and put their heads together and figure out ways to do it and inspire public confidence by making their case with a can-do-and-here’s-how attitude. We may not have such leadership now, but the garage-library monstrosity is a wake-up call for people who care about how their money is spent and what their city and its culture look like.

If a library in a garage is the best you can do for $23 million, maybe that cash would be better invested in reimagining and remodeling the existing library. As with any renovation, be sure to get more than one bid, and ask good questions. Compare the arguments and evidence of Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries and Don’t Bury the Library. Then decide for yourself what’s best for the library and for this community.

Stephen Kessler lives in Santa Cruz.

Watsonville library is a good example

A few weeks ago I wrote that Santa Cruz should look at “Watsonville’s ugly example” before parking a public library in a garage. I based my esthetic judgment on photos of Watsonville’s library I had seen online, and on a conversation with Vivian Rogers, executive director of Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries, who informed me that Watsonville was a good example of a mixed-use library project that included parking.

In an email following a column of mine where I objected to moving the Santa Cruz main library several blocks away from the civic center into a five-story parking structure, Rogers asked: “Would you attempt to stop your neighbor from selling his house, moving into a better home closer to his family, because you’re worried about who may buy his home?”

I was flabbergasted at the sophistry of this bogus analogy. The buying and selling of private property is a completely different thing from decisions about the use of city property, especially in the civic center of a community.

Meanwhile back in Watsonville, offended by what I had written about her town, a friend of mine, Heidi Perlmutter, invited me to visit their library and see how I had mischaracterized it. Heidi arranged a personal tour with library director Carol Heitzig, who kindly walked us around the two floors of the library, which is one component of a larger mixed-use building that includes the mayor’s office, city council chambers, other city offices, community meeting rooms and — yes — a multistory parking garage.

Though the outside of the building looks like a four-story block of concrete, the garage is in back and occupies about one-fourth of the building’s footprint — a completely different configuration from Santa Cruz’s proposed block-long five-story garage on top of the library. Watsonville, to its credit, has minimized the prominence of parking and maximized the association of the library with the heart of the city by making it the two ground floors of Civic Center Plaza.The trouble with the Santa Cruz garage-library project is not that it’s mixed use or that it’s on the ground floor of a taller building. It is that the mixture of uses, and their relative proportion, and the library’s extraction from the civic center, are culturally insulting. City leaders are so fixated on bangs-for-the-bucks that they fail to comprehend the monstrosity they have conceived.

Inside, Watsonville’s 11-year-old, 42,000-square-foot library is charming, modern, well lit and well appointed. Downstairs is devoted to children’s spaces, with everything adult on the second floor, including a special research room, the California Agricultural Workers History Center, and a handsomely designed display on the region’s history as farmland. The dignity of these features is not compromised by 600 cars parked on the floors above. The library is the cornerstone of the civic center.

Santa Cruz officials don’t seem to think this matters. As far as they’re concerned, the current library across from City Hall is a choice piece of real estate to be leveraged for maximum value; the building can be razed and rebuilt in a garage with no harm done to our civic culture. They don’t say what they have in mind for the Church Street site, but if the flawed garage-library concept is a clue, you can draw your own conclusions.

My apologies to Watsonville. The outside of its library may look uninspired, but inside it is inviting, and it is a core component in Civic Center, where a public library belongs.Stephen Kessler lives in Santa Cruz.

7/3/2018 Good Times Santa Cruz

Greensite's Insight

A Lesson in CivicsTemporarily waylaid with a stomach virus I watched the council meeting on the library/parking garage issue from my bed. The discussion of the library was buried in a mix of issues including an increase in downtown parking rates, just as it might physically be buried under a five story parking garage should council vote that way in August. Council heaped accolades on the work of the Downtown Library Advisory Committee (DLAC). This is the same committee, which at its last public meeting on the topic, voted for Option B (build a new library under a parking garage) and after their vote, then opened the floor up for public comment on the four Options for a downtown library. A new low for democratic process but never mind. Being consistent, they also omitted any question in their survey on whether you support a move of the library to the site of the Farmers Market, remove the heritage magnolia trees and situate a new library under 5 stories of parking. Had that question been included, it is likely the public’s response would have been “hell no!” It’s easier to pretend the public doesn’t have an opinion when you don’t give them the leading question in the survey.

Nor was it mentioned to Council that at 44,000 sq. ft. the proposed new library is the same size as the one they want to tear down. Add a couple of teenagers who shared with Council that they would love a new library under a parking garage where they could feel safe and Option B starts to sound cozy. “Feeling safe” is another way of saying “I don’t feel comfortable with all those homeless people hanging around the library.” A number of teen responses in the survey expressed the same sentiment but why would it be different at a new location? Unless of course there are plans for social engineering by design: nails in the benches? Sprinklers activated by prone bodies? A library card needed to enter the building? Are we feeling safe yet? Don’t get me wrong. Women and girls’ safety has been my life’s work. It’s just that a library buried under a 5-story garage is by definition not a safe place and to expect otherwise is misguided.

I was disappointed no one expressed the opinion that to lose the physical presence of a cornerstone of our civic center would be a significant loss. The downtown Library, the Civic Auditorium and City Hall embody the heart of our downtown public domain. Most of downtown buildings are private space. We enter only via our wallets. Save for Bookshop Santa Cruz, which has always welcomed the public to browse without buying, most private spaces frown on lingering too long and some such as restaurants simply don’t allow it. There are other civic buildings such as London Nelson Center and MAH but each is relatively isolated. Only the aforementioned trio can be regarded as a viable civic center. Perhaps that means little in today’s world where we exist first as consumers and only a distant second as citizens but in my mind we should fight as hard as we can to retain what’s left of our public spaces. Especially when they consist of aesthetically pleasing, historic, human scale buildings embodied as a civic center in one place: our downtown library, city hall and civic auditorium.

(With thanks to Bratton Online, where Greensite's essay was published.)

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Letters to the EditorJune 29, 2018

Santa Cruz Sentinel

Letters to the EditorJune 28, 2018

How old is the downtown library? 50, 60 or 70?

How can we expect informed decision-making when there is so much misinformation in the air at City Council meetings? The 50th anniversary of the downtown library was celebrated in March. Of 2018. Yet in a bid to make the library sound old, decrepit, useless, and impossible to be creatively upgraded, a member of the Downtown Library Advisory Committee, speaking to the Council at Tuesday’s Study Session, actually said the library is “over 70 years old.” Then the Library Director, bemoaning the state of the library (which is really due to years of deferred maintenance, not its age), told the Council the library is “60 years old.” Huh? No matter how many times we have witnessed misinformation, sloppy fact checking, biased statements and in one case, deliberate deceit during the DLAC process, we continue to be surprised. Even the Mayor got it wrong when he introduced the DLAC as the Downtown Library Association.

— Jean Brocklebank, Santa Cruz

Felton and Capitola Library Projects Move Forward

The construction project set to begin in Felton this summer isn’t your grandpa’s library building. There will be a park, a nature classroom, a cozy fireplace area, and plenty of high-tech amenities, including digital charging stations—all blended with an extensive book collection into a community center for the entire San Lorenzo Valley. In renderings, it almost resembles a ski lodge more than a hub for reading.

Just a few steps from the library’s patio, the park will feature native plants, interpretive displays, accessible paths, benches, natural play areas for children to climb about, and even a small stage.

“The emphasis is on environmental consciousness—opportunities for programs inside and outside. It’s going to be bigger, brighter and modern,” says Michelle Mosher, an organizer for the Felton library project. “We want it to appeal to people of all ages.”

Landscape architects who are designing the outdoor portion will share the plans with the public on Thursday, June 14, at 6 p.m. at Felton Community Hall, located at 6191 Hwy. 9. Library director Susan Nemitz says linking of indoor and outdoor space is a common feature of modern libraries.

Betsy Lynberg, the county’s capital projects manager, says $10 million from a $67 million 2016 bond measure is being spent on Felton’s new building, including furnishings and public art.

The Capitola Library is also starting over from scratch, having shut down last month, and the next facility will double down with a new play area and state-of-the-art technology.

Although demand for print books from libraries has declined in recent years, Nemitz says demand for technology grew 50 percent in the last year. People come into libraries when they need to fill out a job application, tax forms and financial aid paperwork.

The library bond measure, which got 70 percent voter support two years ago, is funding improvements to eight other county libraries as well, with cash going to branches in Santa Cruz, Aptos, Live Oak, Scotts Valley, Boulder Creek, and La Selva Beach—replacing failing roofs, outdated bathrooms, electrical systems, and structurally damaged areas.The Capitola Library will go to bid by mid-summer, but Steve Jesberg, Capitola’s director of public works, warns that there is a high demand for contractors and subcontractors this year so it may make for a tight market.

Jesberg says the new building will replace temporary structures that have been in place for 14 years. Nearby libraries at Aptos and Live Oak will add hours while Capitola awaits its new facility. A book drop will be added at Jade Street Community Park and storytelling programs for preschoolers will be available at Porter Memorial Library in Soquel.Nemitz says the plans for replacing the main library in downtown Santa Cruz have been complicated because the bond measure provided only $23 million, but estimates for a new structure are $38 million. She says the $67 million total offered to the voters in the bond measure “was based on what the public would pass—not what it would take to bring it into the 21st Century.”

A special library committee looked at future possibilities for the library, including the idea of integrating the new library into plans for a long-discussed parking structure that would replace existing street-level parking on the corner of Cathcart and Cedar streets downtown. It would spare library officials from having to pay for the structure’s foundation, but sustainable transportation activists are fighting the concept, leery to incentivize future car trips.

The Santa Cruz City Council will study the issues when it looks at downtown parking issues in a meeting that’s tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, June 19.

This past January, the Downtown Library Advisory Committee recommended a full remodel with a new parking structure, as it literally checks 13 of 15 boxes the group looked at, including one for cost.

The committee’s next-favorite idea was a full renovation of the current facility, which checks three fewer boxes and comes in at an estimated $11.1 million more.

Comment by Jean BrocklebankWhen voters passed Measure S in 2016 they had no idea that there were any plans afoot to build a new downtown branch. They did know about Felton and Capitola, but not downtown. There are several glaring errors in this article with regard to the downtown branch. First, the estimate for a new downtown branch — not located in a new parking garage — was most certainly not $38 million. A new structure, on the existing library site was estimated at $49 million. It was the so-called full renovation that was estimated at $38 million. However, that was not a renovation in any sense of the word. The architect’s description showed the existing building being stripped to its skeletal framing (with everything thrown away) and a brand new library built from scratch, using just the bones of the former library. Second, building a new library in a new parking garage would not “spare library officials from having to pay for the structure’s foundation.” Library officials are not funding the proposed project. Residents, who voted to tax themselves for 30 years will be paying. Last, the DLAC did not “recommend a full remodel with a new parking structure.” This is a very complicated issue, so the Good Times will serve the public better by fact checking its articles before they are published. For further information go to http://dontburythelibrary.weebly.com/

Comment by Michael LewisAccording to the consulting architect’s own cost estimates, the only option studied by the Downtown Library Advisory Committee that came in under the $23 million budget for the Downtown Branch Library building was the Partial Renovation (Option A in the DLAC Report to the City Council). (See Noll & Tam Project Cost Model, 10/25/17, https://dontburythelibrary.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/6/7/12675463/option_a_part_1.pdf)

The other three options studied by the DLAC were estimated to cost 3.7 to 26.3 million dollars over budget.

City council, what about the civic center?

The Downtown Library Advisory Committee could make its official recommendation to the Santa Cruz City Council any week now. Absent overwhelming popular opposition, the council is likely to accept the proposal to move the main branch of our public library several blocks, to the current location of the farmers market, and incorporate it into a “mixed-use” monstrosity whose main component is a multi-story parking garage.

I have argued in previous columns that this is a bad idea and do not wish to repeat myself ad nauseam, but one thing I haven’t mentioned is the trees that would likely be sacrificed for the construction of a new garage, library or no library. The advocacy group Don’t Bury the Library has offered a detailed and well-researched critique of the garage-library without considering the trees we stand to lose, but their analysis deconstructs the political process and factual claims the city has made to justify its desire to make the library part of its new garage. Interested readers can look at their webpages and compare them with the DLAC report and official information of Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries and decide for themselves whose facts and arguments they find more credible.

Despite the largely negative public response to the library-garage and the dubious wisdom of providing more parking downtown and thus enabling more automobile traffic, the council may well approve the project, thereby initiating a lengthy and contentious (and possibly litigious) process of designing and constructing the new mixed-use ziggurat. But one major question the city has yet to answer — and must in good conscience and civic responsibility answer — is, what is to become of the site where the downtown library now stands, across from City Hall and kitty-corner from the Civic Auditorium, as a key component of our civic center? The fate of that site, given its historic significance and its current function as a magnet for library users, is absolutely crucial to any discussion of moving the library. If city staff has any idea of its intentions, it owes the public full disclosure of whatever options it is considering.

If it has no practical concept of what it intends to do with that land, and it goes ahead with its plan to remove the library, such blatant disregard for the future character of this town — and, after the Mission, its historic heart — would be an act of municipal malpractice. So, will a spokesperson for the City of Santa Cruz please explain what is proposed to take the place of our present library? A public plaza facing City Hall (a natural gathering place for community events)? A basketball arena? Affordable housing? A concert hall? A homeless shelter? An office building for city staff? Will the current library building be saved and remodeled as offices — and if so, why then can’t it be renovated as a new and improved library?

These are questions that need to be answered before the library is razed or reborn in some other place or form. A plan for the civic center should be a precondition for the city council’s acceptance — much less approval — of any plan to build a new library elsewhere, garage or no garage. A public library is a core physical asset of civic culture, and when it sits at the center of the city, as ours does, the sense of its centrality is reinforced.

One of the talking points for a new “mixed-use” library is the notion of a building “for the future.” The future of our civic center is also of vital importance, and if the city manager and his staff want to have any credibility as protectors of this town, and if the city council wants to demonstrate its due diligence and executive stewardship, all of these public servants must serve the public by telling us, sooner than later, what they intend to do with our civic center.

Stephen Kessler is the founder and former editor of The Redwood Coast Review, four-time winner of the California Library Association’s PR Excellence Award.

California Will Require Solar Panels On All New Homes

Amel AhmedKQED, San FranciscoMay 9, 2018

On Wednesday, the California Energy Commission unanimously voted to approve new energy standards that will require all new homes in California to have solar panels and other measures geared toward making buildings more energy-efficient.

"This is just a milestone. There's a hell of a lot of work to do between now and 2020," said chairman Robert Weisenmiller. "The bottom line is we're going to stay focused on making this happen, and happen smoothly."The commission held a hearing before the vote to solicit public comment from various trade groups. The majority of those present, which included environmental groups, solar companies, and utilities, voiced their strong support for the new standards.

Leave the library, farmers market where they are

Stephen Kessler’s column on the horrifying plan to move the library to, of all inappropriate things, a parking garage, perfectly states my feeling and that of my reading friends. We already have a fine place for a library: We say, leave it where it is, whether rebuilt or updated; and leave the joyful, colorful, nutrient-rich farmers market just where it is, Wednesdays, on Center Street. No need to keep messing with Santa Cruz until it loses all that makes it wonderful.

— Jan Harwood, Santa Cruz

City’s Shocking Reversal on Parking Garage-Library Plan

Terrazas and Bernal say they’re taking the downtown library to the next level

In a first, the city kicks off April by announcing an innovative parking plan that Santa Cruzans would be foolish not to embrace.

After hearing concerns from environmentalists who hated the city of Santa Cruz’s plan to build a library below a parking garage downtown, city leaders today announced an unprecedented flip-flop.

“We’ve literally turned our plans upside down,” City Manager Martín Bernal says. “We are looking at this with a whole new perspective. We’ll no longer be putting a brand new library below five levels of parking. Instead, we’re suggesting that the city build a brand new library on topof five levels of parking.”

Bernal says he and Mayor David Terrazas always believed the previous version would have been great for Santa Cruz, citing a parking shortage, as well as needs for a fully revamped library.

“But we listened to community input, and we’re very happy with the new direction,” he adds. “We think the community will be as well.”

Terrazas views the new plan as a win-win for everyone. On the one hand, it offers the exact same number of parking spaces as the previous version. And at same time, Terrazas notes, this new plan has no library underneath a parking garage. “Because the library would be on top of the parking garage,” he says.

Bernal provided us with the following schematic:

The plan has also calmed the nerves of Don’t Bury the Library members and activists worried about the library and garage combination.

“I like the new approach because we won’t have to worry about reading books while cars are parking overhead,” says environmentalist Rick Longinotti. “Honestly, we would have preferred a bike shop or garden on top of the garage, but for the most part, it addresses our concerns.”

Library tax a violation of public trust

Whoever was around during the 1989 earthquake understands placing a library under a parking lot is lunacy. But the library issues goes further. The sudden backlash is a result of people beginning to realize Measure S was not meant to generate millions to build massive library structures with questionable needs. Buried deep in the cleverly crafted verbiage of Measure S that addresses leaky roofs, new electrical and plumbing, and updated bathrooms is a line, “and expand facilities where necessary.” What does that mean? It is not explained, and no one caught this blank check, including the Sentinel. Measure S was the biggest sham pulled over on the voting public. Hopefully Capitola voters will realize they are giving away prime property for $1 a year to the library district. The value of this property is not even factored into the multi-million dollar cost of that new library. Measure S is a total violation of transparent government.

— Bob Edgren, Capitola

Members of ‘Don’t Bury the Library’:We didn’t vote for a garage library

Six months after Measure S passed, the Public Works Director and Library Director presented a plan at a City Council meeting to build a new $23 million downtown library in a new parking garage. No questions were asked about whether a new library was “necessary.” Instead, the council voted to form a Downtown Library Advisory Committee to “help with the design of a new library.” The City Council added a directive to the City Manager “to request an independent study to verify savings of renovation versus a new build.”

The Downtown Library Advisory Committee began meeting in June 2017, its members hand picked by the Library Director. The first renovation option seen by the DLAC on Oct. 11 involved completely stripping the existing building down to its skeleton to build a new library around those bones. It was estimated to cost $37 million, $14 million over budget. Members of the public, shocked at such an absurd idea, requested a real renovation option of the existing seismically sound library that would stay within the $23 million budget. One was thrown together in two weeks, now called Option A. It was quickly dismissed by the DLAC, without serious consideration. So much for the “independent study” the City Council requested.

What misrepresentations were used to dismiss Option A? One whopper was that a renovated library “will be 8,000 square feet smaller than Option B.” Not true. Both options are for a 44,000-square-foot library. Another whopper was that there was no money in the renovation option for temporary relocation, even though the architect had indeed included $720,000 in the cost estimate for Option A. A third was that only the new library in a new parking garage can provide for all the programs residents want. Definitely not true. All whoppers were based on no serious consideration of a real renovation that stayed within budget.​What happened to the public engagement process specified in the city’s official RFQ for the project? The DLAC waited until Dec. 3, six months after it began its work and just 10 days before it voted on its final recommendation, to have the only meeting “to engage citizens and stakeholders in meaningful dialogues,” instead of the “minimum of three” specified in the March 15 RFQ Addendum. Even then, the public had no opportunity for dialogue with the DLAC or the architects. Of equal concern, none of the overwhelming support for renovation and opposition to abandoning the existing library is included in the DLAC’s final report.

Making matters worse, the DLAC survey about the public’s desires regarding the library omitted an essential question: How do people feel about the downtown library being moved to the ground floor of a new parking garage? That question was never asked. Maybe they didn’t want to know.

To demonstrate a critical lack of transparency of the process, 26 modifications of the DLAC final report — several substantive — were made behind the scenes weeks after the DLAC had reviewed its contents and unanimously voted to approve it.

Residents voted for Measure S to tax themselves for 30 years, believing what the ballot language promised, which most certainly was not to abandon the current downtown library. Given what appears to many to be a bait and switch, will city residents think twice before voting to pass another tax? As one member of the public recently stated “Frankly, I don’t support the sales tax measure on the upcoming June ballot, because I was lied to by the city several times about raising taxes to save the library and now I’m told it can’t be saved.”

Jean Brocklebank, Judi Grunstra and Michael Lewis are members of Don’t Bury The Library.​

Scotts Valley theater: New vision with Measure S funds to be studied

Larry Smith of the Scotts Valley Community Theater Guild and arts commissioner Trish Melehan pitched a vision Wednesday night for the unfinished city-owned space next to the Scotts Valley public library, tapping Measure S library funds to create a cultural center and came away with a six-month lease extension.

About 100 people watched as the City Council voted 5-0 at 8:30 p.m. to get a detailed cost assessment and a market analysis on theater demand, work with the library director on operational implications and coordinate with stakeholders such as Scotts Valley library friends chapter.

“I want to see a theater in town,” said Mayor Jim Reed, whose family has been active in drama productions at Scotts Valley High.

He called for “a community conversation” in light of concerns raised by Aaron Brandt, president of the Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries, regarding the use of Measure S monies for a project not listed in the ballot measure.

“It’s going to be very difficult for us to support the rest of the libraries if they were not used as they were written up,” Brandt said.

“Is the guild willing to work with the library? Of course it is,” said Larry Smith. “In two and a half weeks, we raised over $100,000.”

ELSEWHEREThe partnership could mean retractable seating, which library staff favor, rather than permanent seats, according to Smith.Melehan and Smith said cities elsewhere embraced a performing arts center as part of the library, citing examples in Clark County, Nevada, in Westchester County, New York, and Glendale, California.

“You keep the building and contract the management with us,” Smith said. “Let’s build it to transform lives.”

He said the space could be used for TED talks, recitals and author talks as well as performances by local theater group Christian Youth Theater.

“All we need to do is hit 66 percent of our revenue and we’re in the black,” Smith said.City manager Jenny Haruyama said library capital improvement needs are estimated at $1 million and suggested a market analysis be done to determine the viability of a theater.

The cost to finish the space is estimated at $4.4 million to complete the shell and $1 million for interior improvements, with seismic retrofits, heating and air conditioning and bathrooms needed.

Library volunteers spoke of not having enough space to store books for fundraising sales and MakerSpace activities but just as many people spoke in favor of the theater.

SUPPORTERS“The end is developing future leaders,” said Pete Chandler, of Christian Youth Theater, a supporter. “This is not just about a theater.”

Gary Edwards of Advocacy Inc. and music teacher Beth Hollenbeck voiced their support, as did Colter Chacon, who will play Uncle Fester in the Addams Family musical at Scotts Valley High.

“I love the idea of a cultural arts center,” said council member Jack Dilles. “If the space could be used for both purposes, we are honoring the voters... I want to proceed cautiously. I would like to see the numbers behind this.”

Councilman Randy Johnson urged library supporters to work with theater advocates on an agreement.“This is a theater that merges with the library and become even better than the separate parts,” he said. “We need something like this... I see the future of our community.”

Councilwoman Donna Lind was enthusiastic about the new vision of partnership between the theater guild and the library.

“Come back in another three weeks with another $100,000,” she told theater supporters. “There’s got to be a correlating investment.”Developer presentations on the Town Center were underway as of the Sentinel deadline.

During public comment, Angela Franklin, a resident for 17 years and a member of the general plan advisory committee, voiced concern about housing.

“I am for housing but responsible housing, 700 to 850 new units, it’s just insane,” she said. “It could bring 3,500 people, 7,000 cars to town, the roads are jam-packed, police are stretched thin. We’re building, building, building trying to meet the demands. At some point we need to say no.”

The library, the city and the process

Santa Cruz SentinelMarch 16, 2018​http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/opinion/20180316/stephen-kessler-the-library-the-city-and-the-process​By Stephen Kessler The newly rebranded “mixed-use” library-garage will be the recommended option presented soon to the Santa Cruz City Council by the Downtown Library Advisory Committee, a panel of volunteers appointed by the city for deciding the best investment of the $23 million in Measure S funds designated for improvement of county libraries. The options on offer were (A) partial renovation of the existing downtown library; (B) shared space—shared primarily with a huge parking garage and secondarily with some retail, office and/or residential units; (C) full renovation of the existing building; and (D) replacing the current building with a new two-story library.

These four options and the $23 million budget were presented by the city to the Berkeley architects Noll & Tam for rough estimates of what each would cost. For some reason, option D, a new building on the current Church St. site, penciled out at almost twice the cost of the space shared with a multistory garage at the new location on Cedar St. As there is no design of either imagined building, no drawings, no itemized accounting for either estimate, it raises the suspicion that the projected costs are based on speculation meant to produce a desired result rather than on any specific, objective, fact-based plan of what it would actually cost to build a new library.

I asked City Manager Martín Bernal where the garage-library idea had originated, and he patiently explained to me the background of Measure S, the city’s Facilities Master Plan, the need to consolidate parking downtown and free up surface lots for other development, and that the (“mixed use”) library-garage was “the most cost-effective concept” for solving parking and library problems at one stroke. When I asked again whose idea it was, he replied, without naming anyone, “city staff.”

In a city manager form of government as we have in Santa Cruz, the mayor runs the city council meetings and the city manager, as his title implies, runs the city. Thus he is at the top of an administrative pyramid, the chief operating officer, with the elected city council on hand as chief executive to make official decisions—often a matter of accepting the recommendations of city staff (fiscal, planning, legal and administrative professionals who will still have their jobs long after current council members have moved on). They are the city’s institutional memory and bureaucratic machinery and presumably, like the DLAC, work in good faith and with the best intentions.

But when the fundamental idea is in essence flawed for cultural, esthetic and (dare I say) moral reasons, it can’t be rationalized with a spreadsheet. When I asked Bernal whether he could name another example anywhere of a library under a garage, he offered the Boulder, Colorado public library as a mixed-use building including parking. But including parking, which is reasonable enough, is not the same thing as engineering the building to support several stories of parking, with maybe a few shops or offices or apartments around the edges to disguise the structure’s primary purpose.

As Bernal told me, “This building has not been designed,” it is purely conceptual at this point, and can be “customized to need,” depending on what the city — presumably the population, not just city staff — decides it wants. I would want a second expert architectural opinion as to what a new library erected on the current site across the street from City Hall would cost. If the city decided it wanted to do this, I’m confident it could be done, and probably for close to the $23 million available.

When I asked Bernal what would happen to the Church Street site if the Cedar Street project went ahead, he said the old lot would be “a new asset for the city” and “an opportunity site” for new development. Before the old library is removed, the community deserves to know what is proposed to take its place in Santa Cruz’s civic center.Stephen Kessler is a Friend of the Santa Cruz Public Library and a regular Sentinel contributor.

Yes to the Library, No to Garage

Good Times: LettersFebruary 21-27, 2018

RE: "Lots of Issues" (GT, 2.14): Its is stated that the Downtown Library Advisory Committee recommended relocating the downtown library to a new parking garage, and that is "far cheaper" than a full renovation or a brand-new building at the present location.

However, there is another option that is within Measure S funds, and that is partial yet substantial renovation of the seismically sound linrary building, resulting in a remodeled, upgraded and attractive library. The DLAC ignored the majority of the publilc's stated preference for renovation over moving the library to a parking garage )now called a "mixed-use project"). Stay tuned for a late-March City Council meeting. Meanwhile, go online to Don't Bury the Library for a perspective very different than the DLAC.

Judi Gunstra | Santa Cruz

Proposed library doesn’t feel like a special place

Santa Cruz Sentinel - Letter to the Editor February 26, 2018

I saw a picture the other day of the Carnegie library of Santa Cruz, times gone by. I was reminded of the Carnegie library in Emporia, Kansas, which I visited with anticipation as a child.

Part of the appeal was that magnificent period architecture, the windows letting in natural light and the ornate craftsmanship. I felt like I had arrived at a special place and that was before I saw a single book.

How is it that the new proposed library/bomb shelter will create such feelings? It won’t, not for the patrons nor the workers.

I predict it will fail to bring clientele, then what will we do? Let’s not feather someone’s nest over this stupid idea.

— Lee Brokaw, Santa Cruz

Library vote came before comments at meeting

Santa Cruz Sentinel - Letter to the EditorJanuary 29, 2018

The Jan. 25 meeting of the Downtown Library Advisory Committee made a mockery of the democratic process and failed to pass on an honest report to the Santa Cruz City Council. The DLAC voted to spend Measure S’s $23 million for a new library at the bottom of a five story parking garage. As has been the case at all previous DLAC meetings, the overwhelming majority of public comments have opposed locating our library inside a huge cement parking structure. But the report approved by the committee mentions public opposition only in passing. Even worse, the DLAC voted before the public was allowed to comment. Evidently the committee members knew the public was opposed to their recommendation. They voted before the comments so the public could not affect the outcome.

— Hugh Fowler, Santa Cruz

Report: Santa Cruz library should be partner in joint city parking garage project

A citizens committee recommending Santa Cruz combine a new downtown library with a city parking garage was met with a chorus of community opposition and vows of delay during the group’s final meeting Thursday night.

The 10-member Downtown Library Advisory Committee was tweaking the language of its final recommendation this week, having already voted Dec. 13 to favor the collaborative library project over more expensive remodel and on-site library rebuild alternatives.

The committee opted to not hear public comments until after taking a final unanimous vote on the report’s wording.

Speaker Debbie Bulger warned the committee that it was linking the library project “to a big fight and a big delay.”

“The city of Santa Cruz has been trying to build this parking garage for over 10 years and it hasn’t happened yet,” said Bulger, one of a dozen speakers. “Knowing the opposition that is going to be waged against building this garage, you are putting yourself in for another 10 years.”

The advisory committee’s preferred concept includes a new library as a tenant in a new city multi-story public parking garage on a parking lot where the weekly Downtown Farmers Market and monthly Antique Faire now set up. If embraced by the Santa Cruz City Council, the proposed $24.6 million library portion of the mixed-use project would move the downtown facility five blocks south, to Cedar and Cathcart streets, from its existing Church Street location.

Some $23 million in voter-approved local Measure S bond revenue has been set aside for the downtown library project.

Audience member Jean Brocklebank, who has consistently voiced concern against a garage-library project, said the library’s public survey of more than 2,000 people did not ask them for their opinion on a combined library and garage. Brocklebank also thanked the committee for including in the report what she referred to as “errors of fact, erroneous statements and misstatements,” as she said it will be easier to “disqualify” the report later.

“It’s a defensive report. Rather than summarize decisions based on factual information, this document is replete with defensive language, as though its authors didn’t like much of the critique that it received from an engaged citizenry,” said Brocklebank, involved with the “Don’t Bury the Library” campaign. “I’ve been here for six months, very engaged and never felt that our criticisms, our critiques and our suggestions were more than an annoyance, rather than something that you could take a hold of and chew on and think about.

The committee’s report included language of its “good faith” hopes that the city of Santa Cruz’s portion of the build would include heavy design consultation with the Santa Cruz Public Libraries system and affordable housing options. Report co-author Rena Dubin said she included requests for proper ventilation, sound mitigation and appealing design as a nod to community concerns.

“We voted in the good faith that the building wouldn’t be like that, but we don’t have, there’s nothing that really says that it won’t,” Dubin said of fears of noise, smog and poor aesthetics. “Personally, I think it could be beautiful, but it could also be everything that people are fearing.”

In the advisory committee’s formalized report, which will be forwarded as a recommendation to the Santa Cruz City Council for consideration as early as March, the group said it favored its preferred project option for its support of a 21st century library option. The report took a vocal stance against “option A,” involving the partial renovation the existing library. That project alternative, whose cost estimates came in as the second lowest behind the joint library-garage, would be an “irresponsible use of Measure S funds,” according to the report. Other options included a complete renovation of the existing building and a library rebuild on its same site.

“The DLAC (Downtown Library Advisory Committee) felt that Option A was fiscally irresponsible and continued the habit of deferring maintenance, one of the reasons for this situation in the first place,” the report reads.“Option A disrupts services and spends millions of dollars on a building that would not last 30 years; would yield substantial yearly maintenance costs; and would not fully address issues such as updated wiring, and HVAC system and a new roof.”

Stephen Kessler: Public libraries, parking garages and the future of bad taste

The Downtown Library Advisory Committee—a panel of 10 people handpicked by the Santa Cruz city manager, a councilmember and the library director to rubber-stamp an offensive proposal to rebuild the county’s main branch library under a multistory parking garage—has predictably given the concept its unanimous approval and is about to make its recommendation to the city council (which in turn is often a rubber stamp for unelected staff). The committee’s final meeting, scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 25, could be the public’s last chance to kill this outrageous idea. I submit this column as my personal argument against such an ill-conceived project.

Can either the city or the committee show us a single example anywhere of a library sited on the lowest level of a garage? If so, let’s see pictures—and let’s demand drawings, floor plans, elevations and mockups to show us exactly what such a monstrosity would look like here. The no-bid architects the city has chosen must have based their cost estimate on something; they can’t have just picked a number coincidentally approximate to the $23 million budget? And was the estimate of what could be done within that amount to renovate the existing downtown library based on independent, objective, documented evidence?

Let’s be honest. The City of Santa Cruz wants a new Mother of All Garages on the parking lot bordered by Cedar, Cathcart and Lincoln streets, where the farmers market convenes weekly and the antique fair monthly, and where now stand numerous beautiful trees whose fate in the new garage plan is unknown. The city wants to consolidate downtown parking into one monstrous structure and develop other street-level lots more lucratively. The bureaucrats’ eyes are on the bottom line, since politics at government level is all about the apportionment of money. The city manager (not an elected official) is quoted in the Dec. 14 Sentinel as saying that the garage “provides an opportunity to construct a state-of-the-art library in a much more cost-effective way.” More cost-effective than what is not specified, but presumably more than building or rebuilding a library with the freestanding dignity such an important cultural center requires.

Yes, above and beyond any fiscal considerations are the even more significant—and certainly more enduring—cultural ones. A library, even in these digitized times, is a sanctuary of learning, study, culture and communication—even if it also has a gift shop and a café and other popular attractions. Why not put City Hall, the police department, the Civic Auditorium, the basketball arena, the art museum or any of our schools, churches or synagogues under a parking garage? Because they deserve more respect, that’s why. To put a library under a garage is an egregious insult to the cultural life and the very identity of this community.

A couple of members of the DLAC are quoted in the same Sentinel story as saying the garage-library is conceived with “the future” in mind. The future currently staring us in the face is one of ride-hailing apps, self-driving cars, bicycles, walkable residential-commercial neighborhoods and necessary improvements in mass transit. A highrise garage will be obsolete before its construction is completed.

If the city council approves this cultural, architectural and political atrocity, I predict it will result in the structure becoming—if they build the decks level (with the future in mind!) instead of sloped along one continuous ramp—a homeless encampment, euphemistically to be called affordable (no-income) housing. That would at least provide some redeeming social value, unlike the proposed monument to the private automobile.

But for the sake of the city’s self-respect, and a future we won’t be embarrassed by, leave the library out of it.Santa Cruz writer and longtime resident Stephen Kessler is the author, translator or editor of more than 30 books and a regular Sentinel contributor. The final Downtown Library Advisory Committee meeting will be held Thursday, Jan. 25 at 6:30 p.m. in the upstairs meeting room of the downtown Santa Cruz Public Library, 224 Church St., Santa Cruz.

Today, our generation and our town are facing a crisis in our streets and public spaces.

We are experiencing a crisis in homelessness, a crisis in mental health, a crisis in public health, a crisis in nuisance crimes and community standards.

For decades now, many have blamed Santa Cruz for somehow creating the problems on our streets. But over the years, these same problems have appeared in communities large and small across America. We are not alone, but that is no comfort when our efforts have failed to solve, or even reduce the public misery and disorder we are seeing.

​It is now clear that untreated mental illness, public drug use, street homelessness and chronic criminal behavior are problems simply too big for our city to address on its own. A coordinated public strategy pursued jointly by every level of government is required to make a difference. We need a new approach, new energy.

I believe we need a concerted effort to join with partners for a focused, practical, data-driven assault on this crisis. We must combine our efforts at every level, and make sure taxpayer money is being used to best effect.

Fencing our parks, our post office and our front yards diminishes the livability of our city and is not a long-term solution. Moving people around, writing tickets and cleaning up after them does nothing to solve the underlying problem.

And it is simply unacceptable to allow people to sleep in the streets.

Santa Cruz recently celebrated its 150th anniversary as a city, and will next year observe the 150th anniversary of our library system. These milestones were made possible by generations of volunteers and public servants, and it makes me proud to follow in the footsteps of so many mayors, community leaders and citizens who served our city.

Prior generations had the foresight and vision to look out, not just for themselves and their community, but also for those who followed them. Our generation must do the same for the next. We should show our respect for the past by working harder and doing a better job of taking care of what we have.

Santa Cruz is a very special place. I have a deep love for this city. I feel lucky every day to call Santa Cruz my home and I know everyone I work with — and for — feels the same way. As the grandson of Mexican and Italian immigrants and married to an immigrant from El Salvador, I believe in shaping a community that is inclusive and reflects all of our histories.

We are experiencing a chaotic moment in our nation which seems to promote self-interest, hubris and disrespect over selflessness, humility and compassion.

But I believe Santa Cruz is a counter example. Santa Cruz has character, deep roots and a strong identity. Our citizens are caring and principled, our politics are nonpartisan. We will continue to stand strong, working together, rejecting divisiveness.We have a history of renewal. I’ve said this before: When we think about what’s new, we’re used to thinking about it as a break with the old — the new thing begins, and the old thing ends. But that’s not how it works at all.

We don’t just start over from scratch, from whole cloth, believing that we’ve got it 100 percent right and throwing away everything from our past.​Instead, we renew. We revitalize. We transform. This work never ends.

NOTE: Although the following Letter to the Editor to the Santa Cruz Sentinel has not been printed, the Sentinel reporter did remove the claim, in the online edition only, that the parking garage option would increase the library size by 8,000 feet.

The recommendation by the DLAC was not to use the $23 million of Measure S money to “build a new downtown branch and parking structure,” as stated. That money is dedicated solely for the downtown branch library building. The parking garage would be funded separately by the City and the Parking Authority to the tune of an additional $37 million.

The parking garage proposal would not “increase the existing library’s size by 8,000 square feet.”

Don’t Bury the Library’s concern is not with “keeping the existing city plaza.” The group supports renovation and remodeling of the existing library building and is opposed to the construction of a new library in the ground floor of a multi-story parking garage.

​— Michael Lewis

Panel advises city council to pair new Santa Cruz library with parking garage

Santa Cruz should consider using $23 million in library bonds to build a new downtown branch and parking structure, a community panel has recommended.

The proposed library project moves the downtown facility five blocks south, to Cedar and Cathcart streets.

The 10-member Downtown Library Advisory Committee’s unanimous vote Wednesday night which will serve as a recommendation for the Santa Cruz City Council, came after six months of at-times contentious talks, research and analysis. Committee member Linda Craighead said that the committee could not address issues such as transportation, homelessness and safety. Rather, she said, the group’s charge was to determine the library’s future location.

“Within that $23 million, what we all want is the very best that we can have for this community,” Craighead said. “Yes, we are an older population; we are a younger population — my grandchildren are here in Santa Cruz. Wherever we are on that continuum, we’re looking at now, but we’re looking at the future and we have to be able to provide the best possible library that we can provide.”

Fellow committee member Elise Granata echoed Craighead’s sentiment, saying the city is building the “library for the future.”

“It seems irresponsible to sink this money into a space that won’t be viable in 30 years,” Granata said.

Susan Martinez was one of several dozen audience members. She aired concerns about library patrons’ and employees’ exposure to harmful vehicle emissions and said the library was being used as a “carrot to sell an unwanted garage.”

Steve Blair, a member of the library committee, asked Santa Cruz City Manager Martín Bernal, a member of the library system’s governance board and in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting, if he believed a mixed-use parking facility would be built at Cathcart and Cedar streets, even if the library component were removed.

“The library doesn’t subsidize at all the project, so parking is not necessarily contingent on the library being involved, whatsoever,” Bernal said, adding that it would be up the City Council to decide. “Actually, it’s the other way around: It provides an opportunity to construct a state-of-the-art library in a much more cost-effective way. It really benefits the library more than it benefits the parking.”

Were the proposed library project to move forward, the Santa Cruz Public Libraries System has fewer than eight years to begin spending its bond dollars, library system Director Susan Nemitz said. Bernal estimated the City Council realistically could make a final project decision within the coming six months and begin construction by 2020.

The Dec. 3 “public input” meeting concerning the library bond measure was well-attended, and the undeniable consensus was against the incredulous idea to place a new library inside a new parking garage two blocks from our existing library. Measure S bond issue was premised on the need for deferred maintenance on all the library branches (“modernize, upgrade, and repair local libraries”). The concept of abandoning the main library (in our civic center, if you will) and building a new one, was not even presented to the voters before election, but six months after! Therefore, I feel that this recommendation by the DLAC is an unintended deception of public trust and will be a misappropriation of public funds.

Furthermore, if the plan is to re-appropriate the existing main branch building into office rental (no shortage of that) or low-income housing, or whatever, the plumbing, electrical and roof repairs still have to be done.​— Mary McGranahan, Santa Cruz

Proposed library on Cedar St. a terrible idea

12/11/17Santa Cruz SentinelLetter to the Editor

When we passed Measure S last year, it was on the premise that our libraries were in urgent need of repairs. The process of spending those funds was mandated to be a public process. The cheapest option ($1.6 million over budget) of partially renovating the existing building does not address the urgent repairs that were the entire premise for the bond measure. The leaky roof, the outdated elevator, the HVAC that doesn’t actually have AC? The library needs to go back to the drawing board. The proposed option for the parking garage/library at the Cedar Street lot is terrible and we should be allowed input before it gets put in place as the least bad option from a list of options that don’t meet our needs.​— Veronica Garrett, Santa Cruz

Webmaster Note - The Downtown Branch Library roof does not leak and no deficiencies in the roof have been noted. The Noll and Tam Project Cost Model includes replacement of the two building elevators and ducting for the HVAC system for greater efficiency in the Partial Renovation Option A.

Workshop about future of downtown library elicits public concerns

By Calvin ManSanta Cruz SentinelDecember 3, 2017

Discontent and concern filled the meeting room of the downtown Santa Cruz Public Library on Sunday afternoon during a workshop about options for the branch’s future.

With more than 100 people crammed into the room, many stood leaning against the wall during the presentation while others sat on the floor. In June 2016, voters passed Measure S, a bond that gave the city of Santa Cruz about $25 million in funding for the library branch.

Since June, the advisory committee has met publicly to discuss recommendations about what to do with the funds. Early concepts for the design were met with challenges from at least two grassroots groups.

That tone was apparent on Sunday afternoon. After the options were read to the crowd, the room broke out into small groups to discuss the merits of each plan, write down their concerns and voice them out loud.

Brett Garrett, a 54-year-old Santa Cruz resident, came because of his concern for the environment and future of transportation. Garrett said he does not like the idea of the parking garage, let alone the idea of combining the garage with the library.

“I feel like in some senses, the powers that be want to build a parking garage and I feel like it’s going to be a continual struggle,” he said. “I’m advocating better transportation, meaning no parking garage. But also making sure that people can get around without a parking garage.”

While much of the discussion focused on the future of the library, many who spoke touched on other areas. The debate of whether to integrate the library into a parking structure spilled into Sunday’s discussion. People expressed concern and skepticism about the idea, saying that the roughly $25 million expected from the bond measure should be more than adequate for the project.

Sally Wittman, an author in Santa Cruz, said the discussion and the committee did not address concerns she thought were important to the room.

“They said a vast majority of the people answering this online survey about the future of the library were seniors. But they underestimated the feistiness and the strong interest of the seniors in this community,” she said. “So the room was too small. They already divided it up into tables and focus groups. My experience with seniors is they want to get their opinions out there and they can’t stand or sit for very long. And so then they need to leave. So sitting around at a table for several hours is not a good option for a lot of people.”

Of the four proposals outlined by the committee ­— which were available by handouts to the crowd — three had a budget over the roughly $25 million allotted, which stirred discontent in the room. Some criticized the committee for moving forward too quickly with plans for what to do with the downtown branch.

“There’s definitely a lot of trust issues and I feel that there’s plenty of things for the library to work on,” Nemitz said.

Regardless, Nemitz and committee members were thrilled that the turnout for the meeting.

“A lot of very active people in the community with a lot of strong opinions. I don’t think that the job of the advisory committee is going to be easy in making a recommendation,” she said.

The committee is expected to meet again at 6 p.m. Dec. 13 to discuss the options and possibly make a recommendation to the Santa Cruz City Council. From there, Nemitz said she expects the city council to debate and discuss the topic at length before making a final decision.

“Because there will be tons of discussion at the city council level because they’re going to have to approve the direction and the funding. So that will take a very long time,” she said.

After almost six months of meetings of the City's ad-hoc Downtown Library Advisory Committee (DLAC), and with only one more meeting scheduled (12/13), the Library Director has finally scheduled a sort of "public meeting." Frankly, this public meeting is a little too late — done after the fact, instead of at the beginning of the process, where our input would really count before options were set in stone.

Keep in mind that the City's Original RFQ included the requirement that three community meetings be held. Rather than do that, the DLAC launched into its own dialogue, with the Library Director providing the agendas, herding the DLAC along talking to itself and dreaming big about how to build a brand new 21st Century Downtown Library.

Rather than have the DLAC craft a vision based on the budget ($23 million) and ask the architect what could be designed around the budget, the DLAC spent months dreaming big and bigger. In the end, their visions were millions of dollars over budget. The result? Several DLAC members were disappointed and disillusioned, thinking that a renovation of the existing building means they have to accept some pitifully depauperate library project. Nothing could be further from the truth, of course. A renovated library, within budget, can be a library of excellence. But so far, the DLAC has not shown any inclination to see the possibilities of renovation and renewal.

Please try to attend Sunday's meeting (1-3 p.m. Dec. 3, Upstairs Meeting Room, Downtown Library) and speak to the DLAC members one on one this time, lobbying for the "Renovation Light" option (two new elevators, all new ADA bathrooms, skylight over stairwell to second floor, new electrical, etc; cost = $23.9 million).

The conversation with Farmers Market organizers, however, has continued independently of the parking garage talks, City Manager Martín Bernal said.

“When we started those discussions, we learned, or at least I learned, the Farmers Market had had an interest for a long time in putting together a permanent market,” Bernal said. “I think they’ve known for some time that at one point or another, there’s going to be development there, whether it’s a library mixed-use project or some other project into the future.”

On Tuesday, Bernal updated the Santa Cruz City Council on developing design plans for the move, proposed for city-owned lots at Front and Cathcart streets, behind Kianti’s Pizza and & Pasta Bar, Assembly and Pizza My Heart. Though the Farmers Market board of directors have not signed off on their favored design concept for the site, the San Lorenzo River-adjacent property could include a public plaza area with pavilion roof-top solar panels, Bernal said. Separately, the once-a-month Antique Faire would likely be able to continue in its same general location if the city moved forward with a parking garage project, he said. Currently the event shuts down a block of Lincoln Street and spreads partially into the same lot used by the farmers market. An adjacent lot on the other side of Lincoln Street could be used instead, Bernal said.

The permanent home for the Farmers Market remains two or three years in the future, Bernal said, and could cost the city approximately $5 million to $6 million for the new infrastructure. Meanwhile, the Downtown Library Advisory Committee will host a community meeting from 1-3 p.m. Sunday in the upstairs meeting room at the Downtown Public Library to draw public input on four construction options, including partial renovation of the existing 224 Church St. site, full renovation of the existing space, new construction on the current site or a new shared space with a parking garage, commercial use and/or housing.

The DBTL campaign sent an important message to the DLAC,copied to Library Director Susan Nemitz and City Manager Martin Bernal.

Date: 12 October 2017

Hello DLAC members ~

First, we send this very appreciative thank you for your hard work at last evening's meeting. My husband and I only left early because we had a 45 minute walk home ahead of us. Not because we were not still very much engaged in the DLAC process.

Estimate Timing Problems

How bewildering to get the cost estimates so very late in the game! Had your Committee been given these estimates by the fourth meeting (7/27), it could have had robust discussions about details of what could or could not be expected in a downtown library for the next four meetings (8/9, 9/13, 9/28 and 10/11).

Instead, we think your time was wasted in futile exercises that discussed whether to site the library near the river, with a view of the ocean, how much a Cafe mattered or how a bigger community meeting room mattered or any number of the WOW factor visions that were proffered. Look at the effort in the survey you created! All of that was wasted also, because it gave the public surveyed expectations that it could have so much, when reality now tells us that everything will need to be pared down.

County Chief Administrative Officer Says Stay Within Budget

Those of you who may have attended the Library Joint Powers Authority meeting earlier this month heard one JPA Board member (County CAO Carlos Palacios) say, very simply, design to the budget, stay with the budget; that is, you get $23 million. No more.

It occurs to us that all Options presented tell an important story. There is not enough money to build a new downtown library, not A, B, C, or D. All are over budget. And budget is integral not only to the final product but to its maintenance in perpetuity. Even if one thinks the estimates are badly inflated, history tells us that all building projects cost more than anticipated. This is why a contingency fund is built into an estimate.

Future Problems Knocking at the Library Door

Most troubling to us is that all of the Options presented to you are for buildings that will likely become what I call Energy Dogs; that is their monthly utility bills are going to be very high and be even higher as years go by. No matter how high the monthly utility bill is for the current downtown library, a new library, with all the electrical bells and whistles may have a higher monthly utility cost. We simply don't know, do we? If the library system has to pay these utility bills, then this information is necessary for decision-making. To our knowledge, the DLAC has not asked for this information and we think this is important to know in terms of any recommendation from your Committee.

Library Director Nemitz has consistently presented the bleak fact that sales tax revenue will tumble in coming years and the library will therefore have difficulty with less and less money. This of course is happening everywhere. Add to that the next recession, probably to be here within two years.

What's Left?

What a shame it would be to recommend the parking garage option for the library, thinking that it is the only thing that can be built, given the estimates, only to learn somewhere down the line that even it is going to have cost overruns discovered after the fact. If you think this is not going to happen with the parking garage option, think again. It will.

Consider what has happened at the Half Moon Bay project (Noll & Tam) by reading the troubles they are now having:

The feasibility of co-locating the SCPL administrative offices (currently residing elsewhere in 14,000 square feet) on site with the Downtown Library.

The evaluation of the three site option for the Downtown branch (new/current site, remodel/current site, new/parking garage site).

An estimate the cost of program goals against the current budget.

Why didn't the DLAC get estimates for upgrading the existing building (not building a WOW factor renovation with everything but the books tossed out and replaced with new goodies)? As I stated at last night's meeting, the DLAC and the community as a whole deserve to see such an option allowing a better downtown library that stays within its Measure S budget.

It seems to us that it is quite possible for your Committee to keep true to its Power and Duties by recommending a remodel option that is not as grandiose as that which was presented to you as Option A (to essentially gut the entire existing building, to its skeleton, and building it new). In this regard, how would the DLAC communicate such a request for a lower expectations remodel cost estimate to Noll & Tam?

One further suggestion for your committee is to look again at Penny Hummel's recommendations at the 9/13 meeting, wherein she chose the mid-point of Current Best Practices, as seen on page 4 of the slide show here http://dontburythelibrary.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/6/7/12675463/nollandtam_library_presentation_09_13_17_lg.pdf As an example, Current Best Practices for number of seats is 193 - 322 (3 - 5 seats/1,000 people). Penney chose 268 (4 seats/1,000). Why not choose the minimum of best practices (193)? Our library now has 2.9 seats/1,000. Another example is children's programming space. Best practices is 40 - 75+ seats on floor. Penney chose 80 seats on floor. If Noll & Tam used Penney's figures, then in terms of staying within a $23 million budget, all Options are inflated.

This is a lengthy comment and we appreciate your careful reading of its content. You've lots on your plates as it is. We hope our thoughts will give you pause to consider their merits.

This is a critical planning phase for the new downtown branch and public participation is crucial, according to the Santa Cruz Public Library System.

The entire community is encouraged to attend and provide input. Comments can be emailed to elibrary@santacruzpl.org or called into 831-427-7700.

The committee meets twice a month, every second Wednesday and fourth Thursday, and expects to present a report for the Library Joint Powers Board in January 2018. ​The work of the Committee is available on the Library’s website at: santacruzpl.org/measure_s/.

A citizens panel will meet as often as twice a month through November in order to figure out the potential where‘s, how’s and why’s of the downtown Santa Cruz library branch’s future.On Wednesday evening, the 10-memberDowntown Library Advisory Committee will take a trip to Los Gatos to see and discuss what makes a “21st century library” after having taken a similar tour downtown in Santa Cruz in recent weeks. The group next returns to Santa Cruz to meet at 6 p.m. July 27 at 224 Church St.

The committee is at the information collecting stage, initially focusing on what priorities a library should incorporate and later looking at whether the city should renovate the existing Church Street facility, rebuild it completely, or take part in a joint project with a new city garage, Santa Cruz Public Libraries Director Susan Nemitz said. The library has hired Noll & Tam Architects as consultants on the project, Nemitz said.

As that effort has progressed, at least two grassroots groups are challenging early concepts for the June 2016 Measure S bond-funded project. The Campaign for Sensible Transportation’s primary focus in on deterring downtown vehicle trips, rather than increasing the city’s parking capacity. The Reduce Santa Cruz County Government Waste and Reduce Our Taxes group is looking to find the most cost-effective way to build a new library.

Though funded by a portion of a $67 million regional library facilities bond, the city of Santa Cruz has the final say in how it builds its library with about $25 million in funding. Nemitz said a joint garage-library is one possibility among several to be assessed by the Santa Cruz citizen committee.

“One of the things I’ve struggled with is the feasibility study that was done last fall was really attempting to answer the question of, is this possible,” Nemitz said. “Now, we’re really stepping back and doing the detailed work of, well, what really should we be doing.”

In December, the Santa Cruz City Council heard details of a library-parking garage project feasibility study during a special meeting on the topic. The concept focused on potentially building a five-story structure, the first floor a library, some shared office spaces and the rest parking. The site identified for such a project was on a city-owned parking lot at Cedar, Cathcart and Lincoln streets, where a weekly farmers market and other events are staged.

In November, library officials and city officials are due to return to the City Council with options for a permanent Farmers Market relocation, recommendations for a new garage’s parking rates and ideas for a library concept and overall project plan.

Michael “Terry” Maxwell, a leader with the tax-focused group, said he voted last year for the library bond measure. It was only later, however, that he and others who had worked together to oppose Cabrillo College’s ultimately unsuccessful Measure Q, a $310 million facilities bond on the June 2016 ballot, grew concerned about the library plans, Maxwell said.

“We took the tour of the old library and what they needed on facilities. Interestingly enough, I’ve have some experience with the Library of Congress, so I kind of know how libraries function,” Maxwell said. “They don’t need more space. Why are you proposing to tear down, destroy, the Farmers Market and put up five floors of parking and only two floors of library.”

The Campaign for Sensible Transportation has recommended that the city spend its funds to create alternative transportation incentives, and will meet at 5:30 p.m. on July 25 at the Santa Cruz Police Department’s community room, 155 Center St. to look at what other communities have done to solve their parking problems without adding capacity. Some ideas include offering free bus passes, cash rewards for not parking, credit for bikes and repair or rental cars and discounted carpool parking.

What is the Future of the Downtown Public Library?ByJacob PierceGood TimesJune 27, 2017

A twice-monthly committee looking at the downtown public library started meeting this month, to plan for the branch’s future.

Armed with $23 millionin recent Measure S money, the Downtown Branch Library Advisory Committeewill make recommendations on the future site of the library. In other words, should it stay, or should it go?

Santa Cruz committee named to discuss new bond-funded library facility

By Jessica A. YorkSanta Cruz SentinelJune 7, 2017

In the wake of voters’ approval of the Measure S bond measure supporting local library services, Santa Cruz has formed a 10-member public advisory committee to weigh the ins and outs of an upgrade or replacement downtown library facility.

The committee will be charged with studying recently developed public library buildings, reviewing staff input and current use and examining the broader community’s interests and needs. The committee will also look at possible locations for the renovated/new Downtown Branch.

An early discussion focused on the potential merging of a new library facility beneath a public parking garage in the parking lot near Lincoln and Cedar streets was rolled out in December. About a dozen speakers were opposed to the project at the Santa Cruz City Council meeting where it was discussed.Public meeting dates and times for the committee have not yet been announced. Information related to the committee will be posted online at santacruzpl.org/measure_s.

The next step in the library project will be to hire an architectural firm to lead a public information-gathering process and support the advisory group’s efforts.

Proposal for a Huge New Parking Garage in Santa Cruzby Campaign for Sensible TransportationApril 8th, 2017

The City of Santa Cruz is proposing to build a new five-level parking garage above a new relocated city library on the parking lot bordered by Lincoln, Cedar and Cathcart Streets, where the Farmer's Market currently meets. We strongly believe that the City should implement a Commuter Benefits Program first, before it considers the construction of a much more costly garage.

Downtown Businesses Skeptical of Parking Garage

ByJacob PiercePosted onMarch 28, 2017As customers hunched over a wooden counter sip craft beers and ciders, Noelle Antolin, co-owner at Lúpulo, gazes out of the windows and across Cathcart Street, to where the sun plays on trees in the parking lot.She and husband Stuyvie Bearns haven’t taken a stance on the parking structure—with a public library on the first floor—proposed for the lot across from their spot on Cathcart and Cedar streets. She admits that certain examples of parking garages that consultant firm Group 4 showed at a Santa Cruz City Council meeting in December were surprisingly artistic—some immersed in vines and greenery or bejeweled with a rainbow of bright pastel lights. Another was designed toresemble a row of classic novels, including Catch-22.Antolin isn’t sure what to make of it all.

“It would change the dynamics of the street. We’re in the land of blue skies and old trees. But at the same time, it might bring more foot traffic,” says Antolin, who has been going to meetings to learn more about rough sketches for the possible garage. Others have stronger feelings about the possible 70-foot-tall structure.“There are so many ways to travel now,” says Wade Hall, who owns Spokesman Bicycles next door to Lúpulo. “Electric bikes. Electric skateboards. Rail to trail. All these things are just coming online.” He insists that in a few decades, giant parking structures will look as outdated as an old barn does now.

So while the possible garage wends its way through the city process, some neighboring businesses have joined environmental activists in opposing the plan.And although most downtown business leaders haven’t exactly been resistant to the idea, neither have they embraced it.“Not enough business members are tuned in to this issue yet. People don’t know about it, and the people who do know haven’t decided yet,” says Santa Cruz Downtown Commissioner Robert Singleton, also a policy analyst for the Santa Cruz County Business Council.

With all of the money they already spend toward parking deficiency fees, some business owners are wary of a garage estimated to cost around $35 million, until they know where the money’s going to come from.

The Downtown Commission heard about the garage at its March 23 meeting, while looking at the city’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP). Transportation Manager Jim Burr suggested the commission give the City Council direction on how to spend CIP money, especially when it came to a possible $2.3 million allotment city staff would use to design the garage if the project moves forward. That’s a chunk of change the commission declined to either endorse or oppose for the council. Or, as Singleton put it, “It’s your bed, you have to make it.”

If the council stays the course, the combination parking structure and library would come back for more robust public hearings, with more notices going out to people who live and work nearby. By then, a downtown parking study will have come out, and the commission should have a better sense of how they would fund the garage, and the city manager’s office should have an idea of how to preserve the downtown farmers market, which currently calls that lot home. Library leaders, who are spending money from the June 2016 election, might then have a clearer sense of what their timeline is—as well as how well it lines up with the garage.

The plan could also shift in shape or size, partly because Christophe Bellito, who owns Toadal Fitness, doesn’t want to run a gym in the shadow of a parking structure­—especially one that would block his rooftop solar panels. He says he’s open to selling the parcel and moving somewhere nearby.

In explaining the demand for parking downtown, City Manager Martín Bernal has stressed that the city could lose parking in a couple lots, as two are sites for possible developments, including Owen Lawlor’s possible Lower Pacific Avenue housing project. Lawlor tells GT that once the city passes its Downtown Recovery Plan amendments, he’ll submit his plans.

A much larger parking lot belongs to the Calvary Episcopal Church. Its fate is difficult to pin down, but the parish has talked about putting housing there before, and it always listens to offers.“Property owners are getting more and more pressure if you have a property that’s vacant or basically vacant,” says parishioner Scott Galloway, who serves on a church committee. “And I can safely say that a single-story parking lot isn’t the best use for the city.”But even if the church does pick a project, Galloway says it would be at least a couple of years before it would break ground.The church gets $80,000 per year from the city to lease the lot, Galloway says, which helps maintain their 157-year-old building. A housing project might provide a little more money, while also helping people in need, but developments like those often come with risk.Calvary finds itself constantly weighing the desires of different parishioners, most of whom enjoy having a free place to park on Sundays.

Walking through the redwood church, Galloway points out the colorful, south-facing stained glass windows. Those could end up in the shade if the parish erected a towering apartment complex next door.“We want those to have sun,” he says.

Santa Cruz will explore building new parking structure, library downtown

Santa Cruz will move forward in exploring building a new downtown library branch beneath a five-story parking garage where an existing parking lot now sits.

A meeting Tuesday on the concept-level pitch, eyeing a city-owned space on Cedar Street between Lincoln and Cathcart streets, drew more than a dozen speakers heavily opposed to the idea. The Santa Cruz City Council heard worries that the city is encouraging, rather than discouraging, vehicle trips and climate impacts, and that a six-story building would be an unsightly monolith added to the downtown streetscape. Others urged the city to wait for the completion of the city’s in-progress Transportation Demand Management study before taking any steps.

“The Sierra Club agrees with mixed use structures and infill, because otherwise our town centers are going to sprawl out. However, providing more parking infrastructure absolutely does not support climate action,” Sierra Club member Keresha Durham said. “This is like our central plaza, it’s like a pop-up park. It’s not a beautiful one, albeit. It’s a paved area. But it’s an outdoor community center right now. I’d like to you envision something like a greener space.”

This is not the first time the city has considered putting a new parking facility on the lot, though earlier incarnations did not include a library partnership. Earlier concerns included the displacement of the Farmers Market, Antique Faire and other community uses of the Cedar Street lot, as well. The council’s vote to move forward Tuesday included creation of a working group, recruiting downtown stakeholders such as Farmers Market representatives, to create a plan to relocate those public uses to a different, permanent site. The Downtown Commission also will be asked to investigate a parking fee plan for the structure, and an advisory committee will work with the library on design ideas for the new facility.

The motion passed 5-1, with Mayor Cynthia Mathews recusing herself due to property she owns close to the lot, and Councilman Micah Posner opposed.

As proposed, the new facility would share costs of constructing the building’s foundation, but the parking structure and library costs would otherwise be funded from separate pots of money. In June, voters approved Measure S, a Santa Cruz Public Libraries facilities bond, which sets aside about $23 million for a downtown library project. Renovation costs for the existing 50-year-old Church Street library are projected at about $31 million, while the library portion of a new facility likely would be in the $23 to $27 million range, City Manager Martín Bernal said.

The new parking structure, an estimated $33 to $37 million project, would provide the city with an additional 388 parking spaces, above what exists on the city lot already. In coming years, the city expects to lose its lease on a 109-space downtown lot at Calvary Episcopal Church, to make way for new development.Councilman Don Lane, who shared some of his own concerns, said he was not sure that those speaking at the meeting represented downtown workers who would not support raising parking permit costs or alternative transportation incentive programs that community members recommended.

Both Lane and Councilwoman Richelle Noroyan asked library officials to do a better job in the future of explaining why a brand new library is needed. Library Director Susan Nemitz earlier had explained that the new facility would be a 21st century facility that could achieve cost savings in this project. The new location would make the library more accessible to downtown foot traffic and public use, have convenient parking.

This Old Library

Strategies for reducing energy consumption

Sustainable building construction is the major issue facing the architectural profession in the United States and around the world. Consider the implications of ignoring it: Today, 300 million people living in the United States represent approximately 4.3% of the world’s population, which is now nearing 7 billion. All 300 million of us use 21% of the world’s energy resources every year. Of that 21%, approximately 43% is used to heat, cool, and construct buildings in this country. To continue with the math, the United States annually uses slightly more than 9% of the world’s energy for buildings.

As a nation and as architects, we are constantly developing ways to reduce energy consumption in the new buildings we design and construct. In fact, we are looking for ways to create new buildings that will be energy neutral—that is, they will produce as much energy as they consume. However, if we focus only on new buildings, we will not reduce our consumption; we will only increase it at a slower rate. Thus, the critical problem is to address the sustainable improvements we can make to existing buildings. (Sustainable buildings are designed to take maximum advantage of the natural setting and climate while causing the least possible damage to the environment. As a result, they are efficient in their consumption of energy.) We can reduce energy consumption in the building sector only by dramatically reducing the amount of energy consumed by all the buildings that currently exist.

One of the ironies of “green” or sustainable architecture is that each new green project is advertised as using dramatically less energy than a comparable building of the same size that meets all code requirements. No one ever asks about the intensity of the occupancy of the new building, the number of square feet per person in that new building, or whether the building was even necessary or appropriate. Often, institutions will construct new, energy-efficient buildings, but will continue to heat and cool the older buildings, which may be inefficient and perhaps superfluous. Conversely, choosing to transform an existing building into an energy-efficient, sustainable building would result in true savings in energy consumption.

Why are existing libraries good candidates for transformation to sustainable buildings? Libraries are important community centers visited every day by the public. Library buildings are usually well constructed and intended to have long lives. To preserve their contents, these buildings generally have a stable interior climate, which is compatible with most energy-saving strategies.

Simple sustainable improvements

If a community is contemplating how to transform an existing library building into a more sustainable facility, a number of standard techniques can be considered. Some of these improvements are easy to bring about:

The main reading room of the library in the Goodhue building, a 2010 reconstruction of a 1903 structure on the Hackley School campus in Tarrytown, New York. The 16,000-square-foot building, expected to be certified LEED Gold, is heated and cooled by a closed-loop geothermal system, among other sustainable improvements that significantly increase energy efficiency. Photo by Robert Mintzes.

Most older mechanical systems are relatively inefficient. Replacing major equipment (such as boilers, compressors, and cooling towers) with new equipment can easily increase the energy efficiency of heating and air-conditioning systems by as much as 20%.

Such improvements probably would be accompanied by a new building management system or new controls for the ventilation system. Since a typical library is unoccupied almost 100 hours a week, energy savings can mount up when the ventilation systems are turned off and heating and cooling setback temperatures are used regularly.

Electric lighting in library buildings typically consumes about 27% of the energy budget. Older buildings frequently allow plenty of daylight to enter through large window openings; nevertheless, the electric lights are left on all day. Two basic strategies can combat this waste of energy: The first, of course, is to use the most efficient lighting systems; the second is to teach the library staff to switch on the electric lighting only when necessary or, alternatively, to install occupancy sensors and a lighting control system that automatically adjusts the amount of electric light to compensate for ambient daylight.

Windows typically are early targets in energy conservation. Replacing single-glazed windows with double or triple glazing accounts for major savings and a quick payback. During the energy crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s, it was common practice for libraries and other civic buildings to replace single-glazed wood windows with double-glazed aluminum windows. However, the anticipated improvements were exaggerated because of the inherent flaws in most aluminum replacement windows, which allow excessive infiltration (air leakage into buildings) and conduction of heat out of buildings through the metal frames and sashes.

Another simple energy improvement is to upgrade the insulation in the exterior skin of a building. The easiest place to make this change is on the roof, which is usually the largest single exterior surface. When the roof is replaced, the added insulation can make the area more resistant to the transfer of heat. Similarly, exterior walls can be improved if significant renovations are undertaken.

More complex sustainable improvements

More ambitious improvements or alterations can further reduce the energy consumption of an existing library building:

The exterior walls of older libraries often are constructed of masonry with plaster interior surfaces. A significant reconstruction of the exterior walls could result in much greater resistance to heat transfer. For example, the plaster might be removed and insulation installed behind new interior gypsum-board surfaces. Alternatively, the exterior building envelope might be modified from the outside to dramatically increase the resistance of the exterior walls to energy transfer.

Heat gain through windows may occur during the warm months, straining air-conditioning systems to maintain comfort. This problem can be remedied with appropriately located deciduous trees, exterior sunshade devices, coatings on the exterior glazing, and interior shades. Usually, some combination of these strategies will substantially reduce heat gain.

With older library buildings often constructed of masonry, the buildings usually will have high thermal mass (the ability to absorb temperature fluctuations and maintain a stable temperature). Unfortunately, much of this mass can be exposed to harsh exterior weather conditions that prevent the building from stabilizing the interior climate. To rectify this situation, a significant part of the thermal mass can be made to function as part of the building’s interior. Strangely enough, the best strategy might be to cover the exterior masonry with insulation and a new skin against the weather so the masonry walls function as part of the more stable interior climate.

A dramatic strategy for improving energy efficiency is to install geothermal heating and cooling. The simplest geothermal system, effective in temperate climates, is the closed-loop system, which requires wells drilled into rock. The stability of the ground temperature supplies the building with 55–60 degree fluid in the summer and 50–55 degree fluid in the winter. The heat pumps connected to these systems produce warm water or chilled water at much less cost than heating up air from possibly 15 degrees in the winter or cooling it down from possibly 95 degrees in the summer. Even though these systems are fueled by electricity, potentially they can save 40% of the energy of an up-to-date, energy-efficient, conventional mechanical system.

Progress is constantly being made to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of photovoltaic collectors, which generate electricity from the sun’s energy. If the existing library building has extensive areas of flat or south-facing roofs, photovoltaic panels might offer dramatic results.

Similarly, the technology of windmills and wind turbines is improving rapidly. Many library buildings are situated on open sites that could easily accommodate windmills. In urban settings, wind turbines work well because they are smaller and less conspicuous. The addition of wind energy to the mix of energy sources may provide the opportunity to create an energy-neutral library.

Making library sites sustainable

Library buildings do not exist in isolation. Even in cities, libraries often are located on somewhat open sites, which present opportunities to create more sustainable landscapes that can also generate energy.

Most current regulations require stormwater runoff to be retained on site. Even on existing sites, runoff usually can be filtered into the ground.

Typical suburban libraries or academic libraries may have adjacent parking lots that can be resurfaced with more permeable materials to reduce runoff. In addition, the heat island effect of these surfaces can be mitigated with shade trees.

In many parts of the country, the plantings and lawns surrounding the library require regular irrigation. This would be unnecessary with a switch to native, self-sustaining vegetation.

The library site can be used to generate energy. The geothermal wells mentioned above typically are drilled into the library site, including paved areas and green space.

Sunshine that falls on the library’s parking lot can be collected to generate electricity if the parking spaces are covered with trellises of photovoltaic panels. Using this technique, the vehicles parked on the lot are shaded, and the sun’s energy that once overheated them instead generates electricity to run the library building.

Overall, the strategies for a sustainable site—especially those related to irrigation, plant material, and paving—could create a site that more resembles the natural condition before the site was developed.

Meeting sustainable objectives

Having reviewed strategies for improving library buildings and their sites, we might ask: What are the prospects for the future, and how can libraries plan for sustainability? Here are three increasingly ambitious sets of objectives:

Reasonable objectives: Reducing energy consumption by 30%–50% is a reachable goal. This can be achieved by transforming the heating and cooling systems, taking advantage of daylighting coupled with electric lighting controls, changing or coating the existing glazing, and adding insulation where it can be installed most easily, probably in the roof.

Ambitious objectives: Reducing energy consumption by approximately 70%–80% is more ambitious. This can be achieved by adopting all of the strategies mentioned above and, in addition, by adding more significant changes to the building envelope. These changes might include shading devices, increased insulation, and investment in site-generated energy such as wind power or photovoltaic panels.

Zero-energy buildings and sites: The most ambitious objective is to create an energy-neutral library. All of the strategies described above must be employed. In addition, enough energy must be generated at the site and within the building to meet all the remaining energy needs. A likely solution would include geothermal heating and cooling with electricity generated from photovoltaic panels and wind energy. This objective is achievable and represents the idealized path to the future.

Libraries are solid buildings, constructed for the long term. They are constantly visited by the public and can set an important community example. Library facilities should be community leaders in sustainable practice. This revolutionary transformation can occur incrementally, with quantifiable results that provide an excellent return on the investment.

PETER GISOLFI is senior partner of Peter Gisolfi Associates, a firm of architects and landscape architects in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and New Haven, Connecticut. He is chairman of the Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York and is the author of Finding the Place of Architecture in the Landscape. He can be reached at pgisolfi@petergisolfiassociates.com/.